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Pulmonary Rehabilitation – Portsmouth City & Hampshire
The Pulmonary Rehabilitation team provides combined exercise and education classes to patients with specific long-term respiratory conditions, such as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), Bronchiectasis, Interstitial Lung Diseases (ILDs) and Asthma (Portsmouth City).
We run 90-minute classes twice-weekly for six weeks at venues across Hampshire. The 45-60minute exercise portion of our classes consist 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 some of the symptoms associated with your lung condition. 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.
In the 30-45-minutes of education, we cover various topics to improve knowledge on your condition and 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
- Why 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
Onwards maintenance- We offer referrals onto certain exercise maintenance programmes for our patients after they have finished their 6-week course with us. 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 of 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
Locations
We work out of various venues across Hampshire so that we are more accessible and to reduce travel costs for our patients. We review our locations regularly and they are subject to change based on patient demand and feasibility.
Our current locations include: (Times may change)
Basingstoke
Tuesdays and Fridays at 10:30 – 12:00
Address: Basingstoke Sports Centre, Festival Place, Basingstoke, RG21 7LE
PLEASE NOTE! Postcode for Festival Place car park is RG21 7BA
Lee on Solent
Mondays at 10:45 – 12:15 and Wednesdays at 14:45 – 16:15
Address: Lee-On-Solent Community Association, 51 Twyford Drive, Lee-On-Solent, PO13 8JU
Paulsgrove Community Centre
Tuesdays and Thursdays at 14:15 – 15:45
Address: Paulsgrove Community Centre, Marsden Road, Portsmouth, PO6 4JB
St Swithuns
Wednesdays and Fridays at 14:15 – 15:45
Address: St Swithuns Church Hall, 105 Waverley Road, Southsea, PO5 2PL.
PLEASE NOTE! Postcode for the car park is PO5 2QZ (via Collingwood Road)
Waterlooville
Tuesdays at 10:45 – 12:15 and Thursdays at 14:15 – 15:45
Address: Waterlooville Community Centre, 10 Maurepas Way, Waterlooville, PO7 7AY
Travel:
Unfortunately, we cannot provide transport to and from classes.
Follow us on twitter: @rehab_pulmonary
Referral criteria
How to get referred:
Your GP will refer you to us if they think you are suitable for the programme, you can ask them if PR is right for you and what’s available in your area. You may be able to bring a family member or carer with you. Some programmes will have waiting lists, so the sooner you act, the sooner you can start. If your told you’re not eligible for Pulmonary Rehab, you could try other ways of keeping active.
One you have been referred you will have a 45-minute initial assessment with a respiratory specialist, to assess how you are coping with your lung condition. This will involve a walking test, some questionnaires and a discussion with the clinician.
If suitable you will be asked to attend one of our tailored programmes. If this isn’t suitable for you, other options will be discussed.
Our team will see you up to twice a week for 6 weeks, then you will have a reassessment and discuss your onward exercise plan.
Referral criteria:
· Confirmed diagnosis of COPD/ Bronchiectasis/ILD, where daily living activities are limited by dyspnoea.
· Patients experiencing decreasing exercise tolerance
· On optimum drug therapy
· Motivated to attend and complete all sessions
Exclusion criteria:
· Breathlessness caused by other morbidity e.g. heart failure/IHD
· Recovering from a recent MI (3/12)
· Unstable blood pressure (higher than 180/100) or cardiac symptoms
· Psychiatric, cognitive or locomotor problems which would prevent participation in exercise or group
· Co-morbidities made worse by exercise
If a patient has previously attended a complete programme but their lung condition has not deteriorated and shows no educational or exercise needs, please consider other community support options – see Additional information section.
To refer patients onto our services, please complete our most up to date referral form and email it across to snhs.pulmonary-rehab@nhs.net or post to our office. Please ensure all sections are correctly filled, as this will avoid delay to patient care.
“I was scared to exercise before, but these classes have changed my life and now I feel more confident. It may be just a job to you guys, but to me you didn’t make it feel that way”
“Staff are very helpful and friendly, made me realise benefits of exercise”
“Very educational, beneficial, informative and exercises do you good. Very worthwhile course”
“Apprehensive at first but once settled I thoroughly enjoyed the sessions, well conducted by the clinicians. Always had time to speak to everyone and I’m sorry my programme has come to an end. I would like to thank all the staff for their effort and care. An excellent program would wish I could repeat in the future”
“It’s nice to be around people with the same problems and symptoms. The professionals that understand, without judging you by appearance. Nice to not have to explain capabilities”
“I think this course would give those of my age group some experience and confidence to loosen out joints a bit. Overall, I have enjoyed the sessions, even though I found them quite challenging. My fitness has improved, allowing me to walk up a steep hill from the bus stop a lot easier and not getting so breathless. Before starting the classes I found it difficult, having to stop two or three times to get my breath back and now I don’t need to stop at all”
“All staff involved were friendly and approachable. I have a shoulder problem but was shown alternatives to exercise that didn’t impact my shoulder. I am grateful for that! All the information we were given was helpful. I feel I have gained a lot of confidence in managing my condition and my ability to exercise. I wasn’t exercising before this course but know it is possible now. So big thank you to all involved! Also, the information pack we were given is great”
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
Contact Information
Kelly-Marie Wainwright
Kelly-Marie.Wainwright@solent.nhs.uk
Block B, St Mary’s Community Campus, Milton Road, Portsmouth, PO3 6AD
Opening hours
- Monday: 8:30am - 4:30pm
- Tuesday: 8:30am - 4:30pm
- Wednesday: 8:30am - 4:30pm
- Thursday: 8:30am - 4:30pm
- Friday: 8:30am - 4:30pm
Special Notice
Monday- Friday (excluding Band Holidays) 8.30am-4.30pm.