As a part of PR awareness week, we had a conversation with Zoe Styles, from Nottingham CityCare Integrated Respiratory and Home Oxygen Service to discuss how they achieved accreditation, and then used this as a means to; not just to maintain quality, but to raise awareness, improve engagement, and increase visibility of their PR service across their Trust.
Pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) is highly effective, yet awareness and understanding of it remain inconsistent among both healthcare professionals and patients. This can lead to low referral rates and limited uptake.
As Zoe highlighted, improving referrals was key: “we would encourage GP’s and the practice nurses to refer.
The team identified several barriers their service was facing:
• Limited awareness and understanding of PR among referrers
• Variation in referral rates across GP practices
• Low visibility of the PR service within the wider organisation
• A need to better demonstrate the value of PR at an organisational level.
Through PRSAS, the service strengthened how they collected and used data, demonstrated outcomes, and aligned with national standards.
Accreditation gave the team a stronger platform to promote their work. It provided “national recognition that we’re delivering something to the correct level,” helping build confidence among senior leaders and support wider organisational reporting. It also contributed to sustainability, with accreditation helping to “safeguard that budget.”
Over time, this also improved how the service was viewed externally. Accreditation began to support recruitment, with candidates recognising its value. As noted, “people are mentioning they can see that we’re accredited… that’s one of the things they’re looking for.”
A key focus was sharing patient experience through short videos, created with support from the Trust communications team.
These were simple and low-cost to produce, described as “minimal additional resources, just some time and support from expert patients.” Despite this, they were highly effective in communicating the impact of PR. The videos were shared across internal platforms and GP communication channels and reused in engagement activities
The team found that the lasting value of these came from them being reusable: “the resources that could then be used and shared again was quite useful,” and “I have used those films again… just to kind of raise awareness.” They also emphasised the importance of reaching referrers: “that kind of coverage that can reach your referrers is what’s important.”
The service also worked with local media, including regional television, to raise awareness of PR more widely.
While this did not lead to an immediate increase in referrals, it improved general visibility. As reflected, “we didn’t see a particular peak in patient referrals, but it gave us that exposure so that patients and staff were able to see things.” This highlighted that awareness-building is gradual and benefits from repeated exposure.
Through their PRSAS journey, the team strengthened their use of data, working closely with informatics and business intelligence teams.
As described, “the data is probably one of the key things,” helping them better understand service performance and referral patterns.
This gave a clearer picture of activity: “it just gives you a slightly better picture of the data.”
Importantly, it enabled targeted engagement with referrers: “we can see which GP practices are and aren’t referring… so we can then target our work.”
The accreditation process involved collaboration with multiple teams across the organisation. The team highlighted strong internal support, noting that “the business unit have been very supportive.” They also worked closely with patient engagement teams, where “working with teams that are involved in patient engagement… was really good.”
This collaboration helped embed PR more firmly within the organisation, increasing its visibility and integration into wider service delivery.
Following accreditation, the team continued to build on this through quality improvement (QI) work and wider professional engagement.
PRSAS helped to drive this activity, with Zoe noting that “knowing that you need to do the QI project gives that drive to actually do it and then… share it.”
This supported ongoing learning, sharing best practice, and raising the profile of the service beyond the local setting.
This case study shows how PRSAS can be used not just for quality assurance, but as a tool to raise awareness and strengthen the profile of pulmonary rehabilitation.
Key takeaways include:
• Patient stories are a powerful way to communicate impact
• Simple, reusable resources can have long-term value
• Data helps target engagement and improve referrals
• Internal collaboration increases visibility and sustainability
• Awareness-building is an ongoing process, not a one-off activity
Overall, Nottingham was able to use PRSAS as a way to go beyond accreditation, helping to improve understanding, visibility, and access to pulmonary rehabilitation across their system.
Thank-you Zoe for sharing Nottingham CityCare Integrated Respiratory and Home Oxygen Service's accreditation experience and your expertise in promoting the fantastic work of your service!
If you feel that your team could benefit from PRSAS support, please
feel free to contact us at pulmrehab@rcp.ac.uk.