Planning for every breath is the second of the Welsh COPD primary care audit reports and presents data relating to primary-care-delivered COPD care in Wales. The first Welsh primary care audit report was published in October 2016.
A quality improvement (QI)-focused slide set, as well as seven local health board specific reports depicting results at cluster level, are also available.
Key recommendations
Primary care
- Start with a comprehensive breathlessness assessment. If the cause is COPD, then ensure that the correct spirometric test is appropriately documented and the reason for doing the assessment is clearly explainable to your patient’s satisfaction.
- If a patient has a co-diagnosis of asthma and COPD, ensure the rationale is documented.
- Use Read Codes / recording systems consistently, so you can be assured of the accuracy of patient records. For example, use the code 339m when recording spirometry.
People with or worried about COPD, their families and carers
- Ask your GP or specialist why they think COPD is the cause of your breathlessness. If you are worried about your breathing, do the British Lung Foundation (BLF) online breathlessness test.
- Understand whether you are receiving the care you are entitled to by completing the BLF’s 10 steps to good COPD care.
- If you smoke, do not be embarrassed to ask for medical help. Stopping smoking will be the most effective treatment for your COPD.
The report also provides recommendations for respiratory specialists and system managers as well as case studies and opportunities for quality improvement.
How to use this report
This report comes in two parts:
- national primary care audit report – this presents key findings, quality improvement opportunities and recommendations
- results and data analysis report (data report) – this contains the full data analyses from which the key findings and recommendations have been derived. The data are presented largely in tabular form, with explanatory notes throughout.
Whilst the results and data analysis report is available to the interested reader, it is not necessary to review this to appreciate the key messages within the national primary care audit report. We strongly advise discussion of these findings within and between GP surgeries at cluster level, and further review at health board level.
Please note that all appendices for this report, including the full methodology, can be found in the data report. The data report also contains the rationale (including the guidelines and standards that are mapped to) for the inclusion of each query.
Downloads
National primary care report (Wales) 2015-17
This is the national primary care report (Wales). It contains key findings, quality improvement opportunities and recommendations based on the 2015-2017 audit data.
Results and data analysis
The full results and data analysis for this report. This is available to download in full as one document, or in the component sections.
Local health board and cluster reports
Quality improvement focused slide set
This slide set pulls together the key findings of the report with a QI focus.