COPD & Me - Patient Education for people living with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD).
Project overview, including who was involved in the project
Across the Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire & Berkshire West (BOB) Integrated Care Board (ICB) footprint, 24,581 patients live with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). While NICE guidance (NG115) recommends education upon diagnosis, care varies significantly due to a lack of clinical confidence, time and knowledge on respiratory conditions within General Practice.Consequently, most patients do not receive education until they attend a pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) programme if they agree to attend. However, PR waiting times in the region span 4 to 11 months, during which time patient symptoms and overall quality of life often deteriorate.
COPD & Me is a patient education programme that has been developed by respiratory specialist clinicians within BOB to provide patients with a better understanding of their COPD diagnosis, what it means for them, along with tools to self-manage their condition and stay well for longer.
Three GP Practices agreed to be part of the project, The Cross Keys Practice in Buckinghamshire, Bicester Health Centre in Oxfordshire and Balmore Park in Berkshire West. Between April and July 2025, a COPD & Me education session was delivered in partnership with these Practices. The sessions took place at either the GP Practice or a local community centre with a practice nurse and specialist nurse delivering the programme. During the session, patients were signposted to local activity groups, singing for health, talking therapies and stop smoking services as appropriate.
Project outcomes/impact
Across the three sessions 24 patients attended in total with some also bringing a family member to support them.Various evaluation tools were used during the project. These included the COPD Assessment Tool (CAT), EQ-5D questionnaire and confidence questions. Patients were asked to complete the three questionnaires before the course and then again 4-6 weeks post course.
Findings from across the 3 sessions showed 58.3% of patients reported an improvement in the CAT scores, 45.8% improvement in the EQ-5D and 62.5% in their confidence scoring. For both the CAT and EQ-5D scores, some patients reported a decrease in their condition but stated this was due to other co-morbidities and not their COPD.
Feedback from patients included, “Breathing techniques and inhalers very useful and interesting.”, “All very interesting. Reminded me of things I had forgotten over time.” and “Well worth missing my afternoon nap!”.
In conclusion, the COPD & Me project supported patients to understand and increase their confidence in managing their condition and the programme fills a gap in current education provision. The programme aligns well with neighbourhoods, however further development is needed to scale its impact.
If you were to run the project again, what would you do differently?
• Better engagement/involvement from practices to contact patients. Only one Practice filled a course, the other two had low numbers/turnout. The Practices struggled with lack of time to seek out patients. Providing leaflets to give at diagnosis or from local pharmacies when collecting a prescription to advertise may help boost numbers.• Ensuring resources and evaluation documents were in large fonts.
• We would aim to run these sessions at a neighbourhood level to provide a more personalised population health approach and invite along local support services from the neighbourhood including community respiratory specialists where feasible and necessary.
Advice you would have for others undertaking the same type of project.
• This project fits well with the NHS 10 Year Plan to enable a left shift of sickness to prevention and hospital to community with neighbourhood working.• The feedback from patients was overwhelmingly positive and many said they would recommend to others.
• Empowering patients to better manage their long term condition through education should be standard for everyone.