The Primary Care Respiratory Society has launched a new Greener Respiratory Pathway – an interactive toolkit to help clinicians work with patients to identify a greener approach to delivering high quality, patient centred respiratory care.
The launch coincided with World Asthma Day, which takes as its theme this year ‘Uncovering Asthma Misconceptions’.
The PCRS toolkit may help to dispel the myth that effective asthma control cannot be achieved without damaging the environment, or that treating asthma in a greener way will always lead to worse outcomes for the patient.
The PCRS recognises that air pollution and climate change contribute to poor health and increased mortality amongst patients with asthma. Health care practitioners can play a key role in helping to contribute to a healthier environment by helping to reduce the damaging environmental effects of respiratory related care.
There are a range of measures, tools and techniques that can help to deliver healthcare in a greener way, but it can be difficult for clinicians to know where to start, or what will be beneficial for the patient.
The PCRS Greener Respiratory Pathway uses simple graphics and icons and a clear step by step approach. Health care professionals can click on any element (Prevention, Diagnosis, Maintenance, Periodic Worsening and End of Life) to see a list of actions, interventions and guidance to help to deliver good quality respiratory care, in a way that is less damaging to the environment and will help to reduce waste.
Two new pieces of PCRS guidance have also been released:
- PCRS Guidance on making safe and clinically appropriate changes to inhalers and
- PCRS Top Tips for making the case for greener respiratory health care.
PCRS Greener Respiratory Pathway: https://www.pcrs-uk.org/greener-respiratory-pathway
