The Brighton and Hove Community Winter Respiratory Event
Project overview, including who was involved in the project
The Community Respiratory Service (CRS) at the Sussex Community NHS Trust held a winter respiratory event in October 2025. The event was organised to meet the holistic needs of respiratory patients in the community and reduce hospital admissions over winter. 48 high-risk respiratory patients attended the event, which was held at Brighton Racecourse. The event was designed to be a one-stop-shop providing information to help attendees live well over winter. The venue was split into three zones; The Wellbeing Zone, The Clinical Zone, and The Market Place. Attendees would first have a patient-led holistic wellbeing conversation with colleagues in The Wellbeing Zone. This gave attendees the chance to discuss subjects that were most important to them. Attendees would then be guided to the Clinical Zone to have a discussion with a clinician regarding inhaler technique, self-management plans, and airway clearance. Finally, attendees were be free to walk around The Market Place, where local charities and third-party organisations had stools providing information on keeping homes warm over winter, smoking cessation, aging well, benefits, housing, remote monitoring, falls prevention, social prescribing, mental health, and weight-loss. Attendees would have been signposted to relevant services during their earlier wellbeing conversation. The local vaccinations service was also in attendance providing flu and covid vaccines.Staff representation from the CRS included physiotherapists, occupational therapists, nurses, and an oxygen practitioner. This meant the full range of CRS services could be discussed with attendees, with wide-ranging holistic healthcare advice provided.
Project outcomes/impact
There were two anticipated outcomes of the project. Firstly, reducing admissions to hospital over the coming winter. Secondly, recording a positive patient experience overall. Reduced admissions would be measured by a drop in the number of referrals into CRS’s Rapid Response service over the winter. The Rapid Response service is open to CRS patients who may be in exacerbation with their respiratory condition. Patients call in for advice from a clinician, with the potential then for a home visit for further assessment. A reduction in calls to the service over the winter from attendees at the event would indicate a lower rate of exacerbation. This is turn, should mean fewer admissions to hospital. As of March 2026, this data is in the process of being collected and reviewed.To record patient experience, every attendee was asked to complete a feedback form before they left the event. The feedback overall was overwhelmingly positive. Comments ranged from the event being well organised to the excellent range of information available. Attendees also enjoyed being able to discuss topics that were most important to them during the wellbeing conversations. Attendees did feel though that the car parking could have been better signposted. The stallholders in the marketplace also provided very positive feedback around the organisation of the event, and that it was a good opportunity to network with other organisations. However, they felt that the event could have taken place earlier in the autumn.
If you were to run the project again, what would you do differently?
If we run the project again, we would hold the event earlier in the autumn. This would be optimal time as respiratory exacerbations increase later in the autumn and winter. So providing advice before those increases happen may prevent more exacerbations.We had tea and coffee for staff members, but we could not provide this service for attendees due to cost. In future we would like to provide tea and coffee for attendees as well.
Advice you would have for others undertaking the same type of project.
Talk to other local organisations who have run similar events. This was valuable for us when thinking about how the day would look.Start planning early to ensure all the charities and organisations who you would like to be represented in The Market Place are available.
Take as much feedback as you can from attendees and Market Place stool holders. This has given us some really useful insight and will help us plan for the next event.