PCRS Consensus guide to managing COPD

Treatment guidelines for "All that glitters is not GOLD, nor is it even NICE" is a consensus-based article that sets out a simple treatment pathway based on the predominant characteristics of COPD for an individual – whether symptoms or exacerbations – distilled from current guidelines. The article has been developed by a group of clinicians working with and in primary care, facilitated by integrated care consultant Vince Mak; GPs Duncan Keeley, Noel Baxter and Kevin Gruffydd Jones; practice nurse Carol Stonham; and pharmacist Anna Murphy.

Note: We apologise for an error in the first version of Issue 17 edition of PCRU within the “All that Glitters is not GOLD, nor is it even NICE” article. We are grateful for our pharmacist colleagues for noting that we had placed LAMA instead of LABA in the asthma/copd overlap column in figure 7. This was not intentional and we have now corrected this. We have also had feedback that the first SABA step without ICS controller is no longer consistent with current thinking in asthma management and all authors have agreed that straight to ICS/LABA is the most appropriate course of action for anyone with COPD and asthma features.