Community Pulmonary Rehabilitation

[louise]

I am a Respiratory Nurse working in the Canterbury region, South Island, of New Zealand.   (Similar to Northumberland in the UK, but less densley populated!).

We have just commenced Community Pulmonary Rehabilitation which is going very well.  We are doing "back to back" programmes where we can double up with the patients for the education component, but exercise two groups of 16 patients separately.  Has anyone any experience of this in the UK?  The group dynamics are different with the larger group and it will be interesting to examine the evaluation at the end of this course (which will be in December). It would be great to share any similar experiences people have had elsewhere.

Kind regards,
Louise

[Jenny]

Hi Louise,

Its great to hear what people are up to down under, so thanks for posting on this site!

We are currently running community based Pulmonary Rehab in rural Cumbria, (the Lake District). We had a back log of referrals and were doing back to back programmes of 16 in each class & up to 32 in the Educational session at any one time. The exercise classes went well, but we did not find the educational sessions went so well with the large groups. We have reverted to single classes again while we have a rethink!

Have you evaluated your educational session feedback yet?

Thanks,

Jenny

[louise]

Hi Jenny!

Thanks for the reply.  Our first evaluation has gone very well from the patient perspective.  The education session averaged 23 patients + 3 partners. Speakers have found it a bit more daunting, and practicalities like the acoustics in the venues have been difficult sometimes.  We have invested in a speaker system which has made a difference to those speakers who talk quietly!

Our programme is rotated around the city and suburbs of Christchurch,  so we have different venues every 3-4months. Each venue brings its own positives and negatives, but generally so far so good!

Just out of interest, how do you assess your patients for PR?  We do Initial and the pre assessments at the venue a couple of weeks prior to the Programme starting.  We usually assess 40/45 patients over two days.  We aim to have a mamximum of 32 participants and with assessing this amount, we can compensate for any drop outs prior to commencement of the programme.

We have a PowerPoint presentation of the results of our first programme (which was a single intake), if you would like me to e-mail you a copy, just let me know.

Kind Regards

Louise
P.S. Love the Lakes!