Pilot respiratory clinic takes care closer to patients

Our Respiratory team is piloting a clinic at Dereham Community Hospital.

Run in partnership with the Integrated Care Board (ICB), the clinic is for patients with chronic respiratory disease and is led by a respiratory consultant and a senior GP with a special interest in respiratory medicine.

“The aim is to ensure patients are seen as quickly and effectively as possible, providing a one-stop specialist assessment for individuals with chronic conditions,” said David Fasham, Programme Improvement Manager, Transformation team.

“The clinic will help to reduce our out-patient waiting list and enable patients to be seen faster. Using offsite facilities also frees out-patient clinic space, which can be used for additional clinics to further reduce waiting times. If successful, we could widen the model to other specialties.”

A total of 18 patients attended the first monthly clinic on 11 July, with the potential for them to be offered more frequently and offered by GPs on referral.

“This has been a great example of how effective collaboration with the ICB provides a good service to our patients,” said Sundari Ampi, Respiratory Consultant (pictured).

“Our Transformation team has been invaluable in helping us to implement this project. The patients who I had the great pleasure in seeing were delighted that they could access specialist services in a relaxed environment outside the acute hospital.”

Daryl Freeman, Associate Clinical Director Primary Care and GP, added: “I’m delighted to be part of this joint initiative. Not only is it an exciting new project in itself, but the potential for providing patients with care closer to home, linking with primary care and colleagues working in the community, means that we should improve care for patients with respiratory disease outside an acute hospital setting. The feedback from patients was overwhelmingly positive and the prospect of being able to progress and provide more services like this is very exciting, paving the way to the development of an integrated respiratory service involving all parts of the patient care pathway.”

Feedback from patients included:

“Please keep this facility open and use all of the unused locations throughout East Anglia. I am sure that you would be the first Health Authority to resolve so many of the NHS problems of today quickly and at minimal cost. Very well done.”

“It is such a waste of resources to have facilities such as Dereham Hospital unused when there is such a need for more hospitals!”