Primary Care Respiratory Update (PCRU)

Our members' magazine packed with useful features, clinical updates, educational updates, respiratory news and opinion.

Issue

Spring 2023

Focus on asthma: The GINA Approach to Managing Asthma

The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has for the first time approved the use of a dual (ICS/Formoterol) combination treatment to be used as a reliever therapy for people aged 12 and over with the therapy choice situated early in the asthma treatment pathway as an alternative to its current use as a preventer or MART therapy sitting later in traditional treatment pathways.

In the UK, this new therapy option does not yet sit within an approved national guideline as NICE last updated its treatment pathway in 2020. We await a new national asthma guideline but do not anticipate this new joint approach between NICE, BTS and SIGN to publish until 2024.

In the meantime, PCRS has looked to the latest Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) approach to asthma treatment to see how this new approach fits and we have developed a simple algorithm for healthcare practitioners to see where this new treatment option sits.

PCRU Spring Edition 2023

Issue contents

Time to Review

1 hour

Clinical Area

Allergy Asthma

Winter 2022

This issue of PCRU introduces our latest pragmatic guide on severe asthma which guides you through this process ensuring the right patients end up in the right place with the right care. Also in this edition, there has been a major shift in how COPD is assessed and classified announced by GOLD.…

ISSUE 24

Summer 2022

This edition of PCRU features guest editor Nicola Strandring-Brown, a primary care nurse working in South Yorkshire and PCRS Committee Member. We take a welcome look at the airway as a whole (yes, nose and all!) as Carol Stonham reminds us that while for some, allergic rhinitis is merely…

ISSUE 23

Winter 2021

This edition of PCRU features the final editor's round up from Dr Iain Small, who has expertly lead our newsletter for many years. Check out Katherine Hickman’s superb asthma building blocks – get those right and your asthma care would be unarguably better and more worthwhile. The piece dovetails…

ISSUE 22

Summer 2021

Welcome to the Summer 2021 edition of Primary Care Respiratory Update. In this publication, and in keeping with the weather outside, we are providing a focus on climate, Global Warming, and the environment. The balance of good and potential harm that comes with the delivery of respiratory care to…

ISSUE 21

Winter 2020

This 'Get Winter Wrapped' issue focuses on the twin challenges of winter pressures and coping with COVID-19.

ISSUE 20

Summer 2020

Asthma Guidelines in Practice – A PCRS Consensus is a practical and pragmatic guide for healthcare professionals working in primary and intermediate care. This guide was commissioned to provide clarity on aspects of diagnosis, management and monitoring of asthma that are uncertain…

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