Improving and Integrating Respiratory Services in the NHS (IMPRESS)

IMPRESS is a joint initiative between the two leading respiratory clinical societies in the UK: the British Thoracic Society and the General Practice Airways Group (GPIAG)

The impress website http://www.impressresp.com/ 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 becasue 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.