Success for pilot Community Respiratory Clinic

A review of a six-month pilot of an acute respiratory clinic at Dereham Community Hospital has found it has the potential to bring more care closer to home.

The pilot project aimed to improve patient choice and reduce pressure on out-patient clinics at NNUH.

A total of 103 patients were seen in the respiratory clinic with 88% saying they preferred having an appointment at Dereham and 93% rating their experience as excellent or good. Around half of the patients had a journey time of less than 15 minutes and found parking to be easier and a calmer environment.

Dr Sundari, Consultant Respiratory Physician who jointly ran the clinic, said there was now an opportunity to scale up and expand this project to have more frequent respiratory clinics at Dereham and at Cromer Hospital to see more of the 3,000 General Respiratory referrals that come to NNUH every year.

She said: “We are very pleased with the pilot results from this clinic, which have shown a much lower Did Not Attend rate compared to the NNUH average and high levels of patient satisfaction – this also supports the Government’s shift left to move more care into the community.

“We estimate that 60% of our referrals would be suitable to be seen in a community clinic and there is a fantastic opportunity to increase the number of clinics ahead of this coming winter.”

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