News

PCRS-UK News

PCRS-UK Affiliated Nurse Groups — bringing together like minded nurses

As a practice nurse, being responsible for respiratory care for patients can be a little daunting, especially when you're juggling workloads and trying to keep up-to-speed with the latest developments. A local nurse group is the ideal way to bring nurses in your area together. It provides a forum to help you and your colleagues develop your clinical skills and knowledge, share best practice with peers, and benefit from a network of support.

In the autumn we will be running a workshop entitled “Are you In Tune?” — offering lots of innovative ideas to help you be “in tune” with your group and make all your local meetings a great success!

If you are interested in attending this event or would like more information on how the PCRS-UK can help you join or set up a nurse group, click here. Or contact Melanie Whiting at mel@pcrs-uk.org

Becoming a member of PCRS-UK

Whether you're a primary care nurse searching for tried and tested protocols, a GP looking for guidance on COPD diagnosis and management, or a respiratory specialist interested in the latest research, it pays to become a member of the Primary Care Respiratory Society UK. As a member you'll have unlimited access to a wealth of specialist respiratory care information including newly published resources such as our new opinion sheets on asthma in adolescents and tuberculosis.

** Join today and get the support of the UK's leading respiratory-care specialists **

** Membership packages available from as little as £27.00 per year **

Great reasons to join PCRS-UK today

• Make life easier. Become a PCRS-UK member and discover a wealth of credible respiratory care information and resources all in one place

• Keep pace with developments. From COPD guideline changes to managing asthma, there's a best practice resource waiting for you

• Get help with professional development. Save time. It's ready to download and share with your practice staff

• Benefit from expert advice. From managing allergic rhinitis to using spirometry, you'll find a range of concise, easy-to follow Opinion Sheets available free exclusively to members of the society via our website

• Hard copy of the Primary Care Respiratory Journal. As the flagship publication of the PCRS-UK, this international academic journal provides all the latest primary care respiratory research and top class editorial comment, discussion and educational articles

• Read regular e-alerts. Get the latest respiratory information, news and updates, sent direct to your inbox.

For more information about our membership schemes visit http://www.pcrs-uk.org/join

Are you in touch? Keeping up to date with PCRS-UK activities

Now you can follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Simply “like” the Primary Care Respiratory Society UK through your own account and you will be able to follow all our posts and notifications automatically.

• Our Facebook page also offers a medium for members to share information and network with each other.

• PCRS-UK will also send out tweets advising on new materials and information relating to respiratory primary care. You can sign up to follow us at @PCRSUK

IMPRESS

IMPRESS has a great new website that makes navigation of its resources easier than ever. Key features include:

• New sections on value

• Facility to print a real-time version of the Jargon Buster

• Comment option on the Impressions blog

• Easy to search publications and presentations

Follow IMPRESS on Twitter to get the latest news and IMPRESSIONS

IPCRG News

IPCRG working locally, collaborating globally

IPCRG 6th World Conference

We are delighted that the conference attracted over 1000 delegates from 40 countries. There was a real sense of camaraderie, sharing and learning. In comparison to the 5th world conference in Toronto we were able to showcase significantly more primary care research, with 50 more abstracts having been received. There were a large number of excellent workshops over the three days, and even the PCRJ workshop sessions on writing and reviewing a paper were a tremendous success, attracting audiences spilling out of the doors! These will be repeated again in 2014.

We are proud that there were a number of “firsts” during the conference. These included live webcasts of sessions in Spanish to colleagues in meetings in two locations in Chile, one in Argentina, and one to individuals in Spain. We also broadcast to a meeting of GPs and allied health professionals in Kolkata, India.

Webcast sessions are available here.

The value of primary care

One of the key issues of discussion during the conference was the non-communicable disease epidemic in low- and middle-income countries and our response to it. It was clear that more needs to be done to convince governments of the value of primary care. We need to explain the advantages of primary care — how much is and can be done in primary care (however it is defined and structured locally) to diagnose, treat and manage chronic lung disease, and contrast this with a trend in favour of expenditure on specialists. This was captured powerfully in the opening talk by Michael Kidd and in the closing talk by Iona Heath. Therefore the IPCRG will continue to lobby for more investment in primary care and in more pragmatic research in real life primary care populations over a sufficiently long time frame. We will also make the point that asthma is a non-communicable disease and should be included in all national plans, not just COPD.

Links with other primary care organisations

The IPCRG represents a very small, but influential part of the primary care global community; many of our global community of practice are the innovators, early adopters, and teachers. However, we will only make a difference if we stay connected to the wider primary care community that doesn't necessarily have a special interest in respiratory disease. Therefore we are pleased to report on the growing strength of our links with Wonca Europe, and with GPs around the world. It means that, at a conservative estimate, we reach more than 100,000 primary care professionals worldwide through our network of full country members (welcome to Chile!) and 27 associate members. We will run four respiratory workshops at Wonca Europe as its special interest group.

Education

As a result of discussions at the Education sub-committee we have just launched calls for round two of our flagship E-Quality education programme. This is designed to support pilots or small scale tests of change in educational programmes which aim to change clinical behavior with the goal of improving health outcomes. See www.theipcrg.org

Difficult to manage asthma

We launched our Desktop Helper at Edinburgh and it has been very well received. We are able to support translations/transpositions to different countries and languages. Please contact the office if you are interested in taking this forward. We are also producing a set of links to further resources, a slide set and policy briefing, working closely with the European Federation of Allergy and Airways Diseases Patients' Associations (EFA).

Women and respiratory disease — a sex and gender perspective

We also launched a new desktop helper on gender difference. For more information, including a substantial number of helpful references, click here.

Research

At Edinburgh we celebrated the first rounds of our E-Faculty programme, resulting in papers and presentations from colleagues in Vietnam and Romania. In addition, as a result of a two-stage bidding process involving bids from Singapore, Chile, Argentina and Brazil we would like to congratulate our colleagues in Chile who will be the next recipients of the E-Faculty programme. This offers a teaching and mentoring programme based on local needs, to initiate primary care respiratory research in a new country. Our ambition is to support them to present their findings at the 7th World Conference in Athens, 2014. We hope that we can also support some of the ideas emerging from the other bidders through our education and Speaker Bureau programmes.

UNLOCK

The first outputs from our UNLOCK work — our shared analysis of multinational datasets of COPD patient cohorts — were presented in Edinburgh. They compared two indices: DOSE and ADO. UNLOCK offers real potential and together with our UNLOCK syntax project, Rosetta, to develop a way to parse different coding systems, current research questions will be looking at stratification, exacerbation differences between countries and inhaled steroid use.

Website

We launched our new web environment during the conference, running workshops to explain how to use it to best effect to share contacts, knowledge and information. It is much more interactive than our previous website and offers you all the chance to customise the pages you view, and to contribute to them. Do sign in and have a go, and connect with your colleagues. See http://www.theipcrg.org

Annual report

For more information about our activities, download a copy of our annual report http://www.theipcrg.org

Finally, many thanks to Miguel Roman Rodriguez for his inspiring leadership over the last two years. He stays on the IPCRG Board as Immediate Past President and will also represent IPCRG's interests on the PCRJ International Editorial Board. He is succeeded by Niels Chavannes as President. We also say goodbye and thanks to John Haughney who now rotates off the Board.

Siân Williams

ERS General Practice and Primary Care Group 1.6 news

ERS Congress, Vienna, 1st-5th September 2012

Group Members' Meeting

This will take place on Monday 3rd September in Room Schubert 3, from 17.00 — 17.50. Please put this in your diaries now, and make sure you can attend!

PCRJ Award for the best quality abstract submitted to Group 1.6

There were over 100 primary care abstracts selected for the ERS Congress in Amsterdam last September, and the top five were shortlisted for the inaugural PCRJ Award. Worth €500, and kindly funded by the Primary Care Respiratory Journal, the PCRJ Award will once again be awarded to the best primary care abstract submitted to Group 1.6 for the 2012 ERS Congress in Vienna. The award is particularly aimed at encouraging young researchers to submit their work.

The winning abstract will be announced during the Group meeting in Vienna on Monday 3rd September at 17.00. This year the competition is as tough as ever, and seven abstracts have been shortlisted for the Award:

1. Abstract Number: 1026

Title: Can the organisation of COPD care in primary health care centres help preventing exacerbations in COPD patients?

Josefin Sundh, Scott Montgomery, Christer Janson, Eva Österlund Efraimsson, Björn Ställberg and Karin Lisspers. Örebro University Hospital, Örebro, Sweden; Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden; Dalarna University, Falun, Sweden.

2. Abstract Number: 1434

Title: More than 50% of patients visit a general practitioner (GP), general physician (Gen P) or a pediatrician (P) in India for respiratory symptoms: Results of a one-day point-prevalence study in 2,04,912 patients across 22 states and 5 union territories in India

Komalkirti Apte, Monica Barne, Sapna Madas, Jaideep Gogtay, Sushmeeta Chhowala, Nadar Mahajan and Sundeep Salvi. Chest Research Foundation, Pune, Maharashtra, India; CIPLA LTD, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.

3. Abstract Number: 3635

Title: Lower incidence of asthma exacerbations with FENO-guided anti-inflammatory treatment: A randomised controlled trial

Jorgen Syk, Andrei Malinovschi, Gunnar Johansson, Anna-Lena Undén, Kjell Alving. Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden; Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

4. Abstract Number: 767

Title: Comparative study of respiratory symptoms, lung function, BMI and exercise capacity in patients with COPD associated with tobacco smoke (TS) and biomass smoke (BS) exposure

Lalita Fernandes and Anthony Mesquita. Goa Medical College, St. Inez, Caranzalem, Goa, India.

5. Abstract Number: 3627

Title: Adherence to a maintenance exercise programme 1 year after pulmonary rehabilitation: What are the predictors of drop-out?

Ankie Heerema-Poelman, Johan Wempe, Ilse Stuive. University Medical Center, Groningen, Netherlands.

6. Abstract Number: 4542

Title: Diagnostic delay of pulmonary embolism in primary and secondary care: A retrospective study

Stefan Walen, Roger Damoiseaux, Steven Uil, Jan Willem van den Berg. Pulmonary Diseases, Isala Klinieken, Zwolle, Netherlands; General Practice “De Hof van Blom”, Hattem, Netherlands.

7. Abstract Number: 4990

Title: Are disease management programs for COPD cost-effective?

Melinde Boland, Apostolos Tsiachristas, Annemarje Kruis, Niels Chavannes, Maureen Rutten-van Mölken. Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Netherlands; Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, Netherlands.

Joining the ERS

Are you an ERS member? If you're not and you regularly attend the ERS Congress, why notjoin the ERS and receive all the membership benefits? If you are thinking of joining, please ensure that you join Group 1.6, the General Practice and Primary Care Group.

Niels Chavannes, Chair Group 1.6

Björn Stallberg, Secretary Group 1.6