This application from Sheffield Medicines Optimisation team (part of South Yorkshire ICB) is encompassed by our Sheffield Respiratory Sustainability Plan. The plan is based around several principles of respiratory sustainability and at the centre of this plan is collaborative working and putting patient care first.
The Sheffield Sustainable Respiratory Group is at the heart of the work. The group is made up of healthcare professionals (GP's, pharmacists, nurses, consultants) and sustainability managers across primary care, secondary care, children's care and community pharmacy in Sheffield highlighting the system wide and integrated approach we are using for this work. This group is chaired by the lead respiratory pharmacist from the medicines optimisation team and is open to anyone who has an interest in sustainable respiratory care, we meet bimonthly to discuss and plan priorities for sustainable respiratory care.
The parts of our plan are; Asthma right care – addressing SABA over reliance in Sheffield, Salamol as the pMDI salbutamol of choice, Inhaler disposal and Sheffield Greener Inhaler Guide and DPI prescribing. Further details of each of these can be found in the attached document PrescQIPP awards application 2022. A description of the evaluation of each piece is also included in that document.
Some of the key outcomes seen so far include: improved healthcare professional understanding, improvement in asthma control, positive patient feedback, a shift to using less salbutamol in asthma and a reduction in the mean carbon footprint of salbutamol.
We have taken this cross organisational, multi-disciplinary and multi-faceted approach to sustainable respiratory care in Sheffield which we believe puts patient care and collaborative working at the centre of our approach. We felt very strongly that blanket switches to DPI inhalers without patient engagement was not appropriate, so we have produced a package of ideas to support practices.
All our materials are available to other areas as PDF's or the original documents which can be shared with other organisations.
