COPD Community Services (Southampton)

University Hospital Southampton and Solent NHS work together to form Southampton Integrated Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) Team; a jointly commissioned COPD service for the patients of Southampton.

The whole team provide supported discharge and admission avoidance support for patient who are regularly admitted to hospital with their COPD.

Solent NHS provide Pulmonary Rehabilitation Pathway and Community COPD clinics for people with complex COPD. People can get support in these clinics from respiratory consultants and specialist respiratory clinicians.

Please see our information leaflet for more details on our Pulmonary Rehabilitation Service:

Contact information

Pulmonary Rehabilitation: 0300 123 3794
Community Consultant Clinic: 0300 123 3398

Pulmonary Rehabilitation - information for patients

What Is Pulmonary Rehabilitation?

Pulmonary Rehabilitation is combined exercise and education classes to patients with specific long-term respiratory conditions. Please note we are only able to accept patients with a diagnosis of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). Read our leaflet here.

We run classes twice-weekly for six weeks at venues across Southampton. The exercise portion of our classes consists of a warm-up, muscle strengthening exercises, a stamina section and a cool-down, with the aim of improving your fitness so that you are better able to deal with your breathlessness.

We will not push you to do something you are uncomfortable doing and we encourage all our patients to work to their own ability and take rest if they need it.

Your will also learn breathing and relaxation techniques to help your lung condition.

We cover various topics to improve knowledge help you to have more control over the impact of your lung diagnosis more. We provide you with an education pack with all the topics that you can use for future reference with online resources to guide you too.

Topics include:

How your lungs work
Long term lung conditions
Benefits of Exercise
Home exercise program and onwards community exercise options
Airway clearance and managing continence issues
Action planning and future care planning
Energy conservation
Anxiety and relaxation
Medications
Nutrition
Local charity and peer support
Benefits and pensions / Q & A

Next steps

We offer our patients the opportunity to continue onto a transitional exercise programme after they have finished their 6-week course with us. This is a 10-week programme, with 60-minute classes held once weekly at various locations. This is to give you a little more support while you start to work out your long-term exercise plan.

We strongly encourage our patients to carry on exercising, whether that's through local referral scheme, completing their own exercise, or using our education pack to follow the set exercises at home.

Exercise is a prescribed part of the management for people with long term lung conditions and is as important as the medications prescribed for these conditions. We want all our patients to continue exercising after our course to maintain and improve their strength and stamina gains and improve the management of their condition.

How can it help?:

Help you walk further without taking as many rests.
Feel less breathless during activities such as climbing stairs, shopping, and dressing
Gives you more control over your breathlessness
Feel more positive and in a better place with yourself
Feel less tired and improve social interaction
Improve your quality of life

It is a great way of helping yourself, to regain independence and feel in control of your lung condition.

Pulmonary Rehab Locations

We work out of various venues across Southampton so that we are more accessible and to reduce travel costs for our patients.

Our current locations include:

Bitterne, Southampton: Bitterne Health Centre, Commercial St, Bitterne Village, Southampton SO18 6BT.
Tuesdays and Thursdays: 10:00 – 12:00 and 13:00 – 15:00
Milbrook, Southampton: Adelaide Health Centre, William Macleod Way, Southampton, SO16 4HB
Tuesdays and Fridays at 13:00-15:00
Southampton City Centre: Royal South Hants Hospital, Brintons Terrace, Southampton, SO14 0YG.
Mondays and Wednesdays 13:00 – 15:00

Online Sessions: Via Zoom Completed at Home (there is a possibility of lending you a tablet computer with internet connection for this).

Wednesdays: 16.45-18.00
Fridays: 10.45-12.15

We can look at flexible attendance or mix and match with face-to-face classes for those people with care and work commitments.

Accessing the service

How to get referred:
To access our Pulmonary Rehab Service, your GP/Practice Nurse or Pharmacist will need to complete a referral form if they think you are suitable for the programme, you can ask them if Pulmonary Rehabilitation (PR) is right for you and what’s available in your area. Please speak to them at your next appointment/review.

You will need to have a confirmed diagnosis of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) to be considered for our service and be registered at a Southampton GP Surgery.

What happens next:

A member of the team will assess you over the telephone. If you are suitable for Pulmonary Rehabilitation, we will then invite you to clinic to get to know you and how COPD affects you. We assess how you are managing your medications. We also discuss other limitations, like a bad back for example.

At the appointment we will take some readings and do a walk test to see how your breathing changes when you are moving. We can then book you onto your first Pulmonary Rehab Class.

You will attend class for twice a week for 6 weeks, then you will complete a reassessment and discuss your onward exercise plan.

Community COPD Consultant Clinic - information for patients

Accessing the service

If your GP feels you would benefit from support from a specialist COPD Clinician in the community, they can refer you into our Community COPD Consultant Clinic. This may allow you to have your appointments in clinics closer to home and outside of the hospital environment, however if you need certain scans or investigations you may have to attend clinics at the hospital in Southampton initially.

You will need to have a confirmed diagnosis of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) to be considered for our service and be registered at a Southampton GP Surgery. A GP must complete a referral form.

Community Clinic Locations

Bitterne, Southampton: Bitterne Health Centre, Commercial St, Bitterne Village, Southampton SO18 6BT
Milbrook, Southampton: Adelaide Health Centre, William Macleod Way, Southampton, SO16 4HB
Southampton City Centre: Royal South Hants Hospital, Brintons Terrace, Southampton, SO14 0YG.

Resources

Pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) | Asthma + Lung UK (asthmaandlung.org.uk)

NHS Pulmonary Rehabilitation - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGzlcU9PQ-M

Solent Pulmonary Rehabilitation YouTube videos

Virtual Pulmonary Rehabilitation Exercises 1 to 3: https://youtu.be/FRfUgDJaFQk
Virtual Pulmonary Rehabilitation Exercises 4 to 6: https://youtu.be/omv_EUyFmqk
Borg Scale: https://youtu.be/UJpgt1oCHBg
Position of Ease: https://youtu.be/g4Wr1euz7gs
Pursed Lip Breathing: https://youtu.be/yHrBYAleHpg

Health Professional?

Referral method

Pulmonary Rehabilitation

Referral criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

MUST have primary diagnosis of COPD where daily living activities are limited by subjective dyspnoea
Must be clinically stable
On optimal medication
Motivated to attend
Sufficient mobility and cognition to physically partake in an exercise regime
Patients with subjective dyspnoea and poor self-management skills
MUST be registered with Southampton City GP practice

Exclusion Criteria:

Unstable cardiac problems/ angina/ cardiac arrhythmias
Psychiatric, cognitive or locomotor problems which would prevent participation in exercise group
Unstable BP
Myocardial infarction < 6 weeks
Breathlessness caused by other morbidity e.g. heart failure/IHD
Acute /uncontrolled LVF
Unwilling to participate
Unable to access venue
No other respiratory conditions can be accepted by Solent Trust e.g. Idiopathic Fibrosis

To refer patients into our service, please complete our most up to date referral form and email it to: solentwest.icopd@solent.nhs.uk Please ensure all sections are correctly filled out and a spirometry graph result is provided.

Click here for the Solent West PR Referral Form.

Community COPD Consultant Clinic

Referral Criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

Must have a recent CXR or be sent for one before the clinic appointment so it is available at the consultation
Must have an up-to-date medications list completed or attached
Must have a clinical question for the consultant to address
Must have the results of any other recent tests e.g. FBC

Exclusion Criteria:

Non-COPD diagnosis –if you want the patient to have investigations to confirm a COPD diagnosis or they need further investigative studies please refer to The Respiratory Centre at UHS.
Incomplete referral form
This is not an oxygen assessment clinic- referrals for oxygen should be sent to the oxygen service at UHS
Patient unable to access venue- we do not offer a domiciliary service , but can advise eligible patients how to book with the patient transport services thru Southcoast ambulance service

Click here for the COPD Community Consultant Referral Form.