We started the year with a talk from Claire Doran, Eastern and Coastal Kent Primary Care Trust coordinator of the NHS’s Expert Patient Programme. She told us about the course, which is free, for people who live with any kind of chronic or long-term illness. The course aims to empower patients and works through peer education – and is run by trained lay tutors who deal with chronic health problems in their own lives so they understand the day to day difficulties of living with chronic disease.
The courses which currently run in Sittingbourne, Thanet and Deal will shortly be starting up in Whitstable. During the seven two-and-a-half hour sessions, patients share symptoms and problems caused by their illnesses; there are exercise, breathing and relaxation sessions and participants make action plans to achieve things they have found difficult. Mutual encouragement helps with confidence and self-esteem, and patients learn together ways to communicate clearly with their GPs, explain their illness and associated needs to their family and friends, and generally to become their own advocates. Understanding how to make living wills is another aspect dealt with on the course.
An animated discussion followed Claire’s talk, with several Breathe Easy members interested in taking the course. It certainly seems to work: evidence from the course’s graduates show that they visit their GPs less, have less outpatient appointments, and fewer trips to accident and emergency. Course members often choose to stay in touch for friendship and support after their sessions have ended.
The Expert Patient programme was set up as a Department of Health initiative in 2002. Eastern and Coastal Kent is one of the first primary care trusts to have a full-time Expert Patient coordinator. Government targets aim for 120,000 people to have taken the course by 2010 so Claire will certainly have her work cut out in East Kent. People with chronic disease can be referred to the programme by their health practitioner or they can self-refer by telephoning Claire. This programme really is about doing it for ourselves.
Claire Doran, Expert Patient Coordinator, Eastern and Coastal Primary Care Trust: 01304 216857
