Abstract
BACKGROUND: Pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) is an effective intervention for patients with moderate to severe COPD. In UK, PR has been provided mostly in hospitals, recently community based are becoming more common. Advantages of community based PR include improved accessibility and social cohesion within the groups. The current level of provision of PR in the community is not known. As community based PR programmes are often performed by non-specialists and use different methods and outcome measures, quality control becomes increasingly relevant. However it is difficult to compare the effectiveness of different programmes as no standard data are collected. AIMS: To a) describe the current availability and methods used, of all community based pulmonary rehabilitation schemes in the UK. b) establish a network of programmes with agreement as to the key outcome measures to be recorded. c) set up a database so that groups can compare their results with others. METHODS: Comprehensive survey of all UK community based programmes: Part 1: Identifying all programmes: a letter asking about the presence of rehabilitation programmes will be sent to all primary and secondary care specialists, health authorities and other appropriate groups. We will cross-check the effectiveness of these methods in identifying PR programmes which we know to exist. Part 2: A telephone survey of the methods of rehabilitation including: composition of the rehab team, the duration and contents of the programme, methods of assessment e.g. exercise testing and health status questionnaires. Those identified will be invited to join a PR network and common outcome measures. A database will be formed for comparison of data from different groups. We are interested to discuss this proposed project and hear views about the value of extending the survey in Europe.