Bringing specialist lung testing closer to home

For people experiencing ongoing breathlessness or other symptoms of lung disease, getting a diagnosis and the right treatment sooner can make a huge difference to quality of life.

The Lung Function and Sleep Apnoea Team at Cardiff and Vale has worked with Primary Care colleagues to make it quicker and easier for people with suspected lung disease to access specialist testing, closer to home.

Four community spirometry hubs have been established across Cardiff and the Vale, giving people with suspected COPD easier access to testing and a diagnosis. The project has had a hugely positive impact on patients, enabling an earlier diagnosis rate for people living with COPD and has led to a decline in individuals attending the Emergency Unit with COPD-related issues.

Spirometry is a breathing test which diagnoses COPD, a progressive and long-term lung condition that causes breathing difficulties.

Before the community hubs were established, access to spirometry through GP practices varied. Spirometry requires specialist training and expertise, which can make it difficult to provide consistently across individual practices. As a result, some patients needed to join hospital waiting lists for further investigation and diagnosis.

Lois Attewell, Head of Respiratory Physiology Services at the Health Board, played a pivotal role in the project: “It’s a great example of how specialist care can be brought into the community. We’ve now tested over 4000 patients which has resulted in system-wide benefits. The project has reduced Primary Care workload, equating to approximately 1,977 fewer GP interactions for COPD-related issues, releasing capacity for other patients. Prescribing quality has improved and acute capacity has been freed up thanks to a reduction in hospital admissions and Emergency Unit attendances.

Thank you to the Community Spirometry Team across Secondary and Community Care for all your efforts and collaboration.”

The Lung Function and Sleep Apnoea Team care for patients who have a range of different lung diseases and carry out testing and therapy for people across Cardiff and Vale. The spirometry hubs demonstrate how specialist and Primary Care teams can work together to make care easier to access, helping patients access the right tests and treatment sooner while reducing the need for hospital appointments.

The team’s work on Community Spirometry has now been recognised nationally, as finalists of the NHS Wales Effective Care Award and the Health Service Journal (HSJ) Neighbourhood and Community Care Innovation of the Year Award. For ‘Reducing Variation, Improving Outcomes: Redesigning Respiratory Diagnostic Pathways through Community-based Spirometry hubs.’

By providing specialist testing in the community, the hubs are improving the experience for patients while also creating a more efficient pathway for healthcare teams, helping to ease pressure elsewhere in the system.