IMPRESS: Improving and Integrating Respiratory Services in the NHS (Thinking strategically: Implementing locally)

IMPRESS was set up in October 2006 as a joint BTS and PCRS-UK (then GPIAG) joint working party with the remit of "Providing the clinical leadership required to drive improvements in care across/beyond the traditional boundaries of primary care and secondary care to achieve high quality integrated patient centred care for the population with or at risk of respiratory disease."

IMPRESS in its first 4 years has:

• Established and maintained a comprehensive website, containing as a clinician or commissioner ?all you need to know to commission or provide high quality patient-centred services, integrated between primary and secondary care? and attracting circa 400 visits per week
• Generated a range of resources and publications all freely available through this IMPRESS website
• Provided a model both for the respiratory community locally and other disease areas for how primary care and secondary care can interact and come together to deliver integrated services
• Enabled the BTS and PCRS-UK to reach out and establish relationships with bodies key to the commissioning process and to influence on a range of topics that neither Society on its own would have done
• Built a reputation for itself as an independent voice representing the combined view of primary care and secondary care on key issues related to integrated care

Our Aims

BTS and PCRS-UK both have a passion to improve services for patients with respiratory disease. The aims of IMPRESS are to provide leadership, advice and support to our members to help them engage with the changing NHS and to find ways to direct and provide high quality integrated care for people with respiratory disease in local settings.

Scope of IMPRESS

• 2011 onwards Principle area of work: Commissioning
• Target audience: Commissioners and providers
• Disease area: Respiratory, with a focus on long term conditions such as COPD, asthma and sleep apnoea
• Geographical area: The focus continues to be on the NHS in England on the grounds this is the majority of the UK population and the nation with the greatest change and need for guidance. IMPRESS however needs to learn from the work of the other 3 nations. Equally, much of the work of IMPRESS is applicable to or can be readily adapted to all 4 UK nations

How we are organised

The organisations have formed a joint structure to develop a range of activities which will deliver this agenda. This model of working together across traditional health care boundaries is new and exciting and we will be inclusive in our approach, involving patient, lay, management and other constituencies in our work.

Members of the Implementation Group from January 2011 are:

BTS Co Chair:

• Dr Mike Ward from 1 April 2011

Representatives:

• Dr Louise Restrick
• Jane Scullion

PCRS-UK Co Chair:

• Dr Steve Holmes

Representatives:

• Dr Noel Baxter
• Dr Basil Penney
• Sandy Walmsley

The website

The site contains all you need to know to commission or provide high quality patient-centred services, integrated between primary and secondary care. The focus is on long term conditions such as COPD, asthma and sleep apnoea because these are the conditions most likely to require a mix of primary and secondary care over a person's lifetime. The website is designed to equip commissioners with an understanding of the evidence-base, standards, workforce issues, and tricky issues such as interpreting data and coding correctly. Equally, it offers clinicians practical tools; an appreciation of how their services might be commissioned in the future, and suggestions of how they best engage with the commissioning process. We appreciate that each UK nation has a different structure and ways of planning and procuring health services. Since the changes that have created most desire for guidance and support have been in England, some of these pages are specific to England (the Commissioning pages in particular). However, we hope that colleagues in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland will find resources that help them too. We also acknowledge that each nation has its own respiratory strategy in draft or published. For further information and links please go to NHS Policy.

History of IMPRESS

Download founding document here