Specialist Palliative Care Referral Guidelines And Symptom Control For Patients With End-Stage Chronic Respiratory Disease, Mersey and Cheshire Areas

This guideline was produced by a multi disciplinary working group of respiratory and palliative care health professionals from the Mersey and Cheshire area. Linda Johns, Respiratory Nurse Specialist, The Cardiothoracic Centre, Liverpool and Denise Williams Respiratory Nurse Consultant from Wirral Hospitals were involved in the working group and felt that the guidelines might be useful to share with colleagues who are developing such services in other areas.

They launched the guidelines locally on 14th September 2006 across their area, but stress that they were developed for their local situation and had to go through Drugs and Therapetics in each area of Merseyside and therefore are unlikely to be exactly appropraite for other areas without some alteration.
Linda would welcome feedback about the guidelines to pass onto the working group and would particularly like people to let her know what other parts of the country they are being disseminated to, for audit purposes. She can be contacted by email

To download guidelines, click here.
To download Directory of Specialist Palliative Care Services for Patients with End-Stage Respiratory Disease, click here.

Community Pulmonary Rehabilitation - Best Practice

A meeting was convened at the GPIAG national conference, on 8 July 2005 for all those involved in the practicalities of setting up and delivering community pulmonary rehabilitation. Health care professionals (including physiotherapists, nurses and doctors) and patient advocates from the British Lung Foundation came together to share best practice. The result is a series of recommendations which attempt to summarise the issues considered important by the group. To see the summary of the recommendations click here

New infection control guidelines on The Use of Placebo Inhaler Devices, Peak Flow Meters and Inspiratory Flow Meters in Clinical Practice:
Following discussions between interested parties, these guidelines have been produced by the British Thoracic Society Standards of Care Committee and the National Respiratory Training Centre. This is a summary document with practical recommendations. While the ideal is a new placebo device for each person, realistically this is not possible. Inspiratory flow meters are only a partial option.
The documents can be viewed at: http://www.brit-thoracic.org.uk/Professional Updates