Respiratory Nurse Specialist (RNS) Service

• Nurse Led Clinics
  
  The RNS see patients with asthma, Chronic Obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), bronchiectasis, Interstitial lung disease/lung fibrosis (ILD), pulmonary hypertension, Tuberculosis (TB) and non-tuberculous mycobacterium (NTM) as well as other respiratory conditions. In these clinics, changes to treatment and management plans are made and ongoing advice and support provided.
  
• Telephone clinics
  
  These clinics are run with repeat prescriptions provided for drugs that cannot be prescribed by community teams. We provide a telephone helpline service Monday-Friday 08:30-16:30. A rolling pulmonary rehabilitation programme is managed by the RNS team. This not only incudes people with COPD but also people with other respiratory conditions. In addition the respiratory nurse specialists manage a small team of outpatient nurses and support the respiratory clinics run by the medical staff.
  
• Tuberculosis (TB)
  
  We offer a Bath health district service for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of TB. The clinic provides ongoing support for patients with TB. We work closely with Public Health England. Unfortunately we are unable to provide a BCG vaccine service due to the lack of available vaccine nationally.
• Pulmonary Hypertension
  
  We offer support and advice to patients attending our regional clinic. This clinic sees patients from the South West and links in to the centre care provided by the Royal Free Hospital in London.
• Home intravenous (IV) antibiotic service
  
  This is available for some patients with bronchiectasis. We work closely with other community providers so that where appropriate patients can receive a two week course of IV antibiotics whilst staying in their own homes. In certain circumstances some patients/carers can be trained to give their own IV antibiotics. We have an excellent peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC line) service provided by radiology; this enables patients to have comfortable and durable IV access.
• Interstitial Lung Disease/lung fibrosis (ILD)
  
  We work closely with the specialist centre in North Bristol. We provide advice and support to people living with this condition including initiating medication plans.
• Pleural procedure clinic and Thoracoscopy
  
  We support two respiratory consultants who provide a pleural procedure service and Thoracoscopy.
• Cystic Fibrosis (CF)
  
  We work with the CF centre in Bristol providing shared care to adult patients with CF. Our service is local for patients living in the Bath area.
• Teaching/Audits
  
  We as a team provide teaching for ward/trainee nurses and are involved in national audits.

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