Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans he has to tackle late diagnosis for people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Public Health England has developed a campaign to raise awareness of the symptom of breathlessness. The Breathlessness campaign aims to encourage those with inappropriate breathlessness (breathlessness that is disproportionate to the level of activity undertaken i.e. at rest or on minimal exertion) to go and see their general practitioner (GP). It is primarily aimed at earlier diagnosis of heart and lung disease, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), with scope to reduce premature mortality and to improve the quality of life of those living with these conditions.

The campaign ran as a local pilot and will be run at a regional level in the East of England in February 2015. Evaluation of the local pilot is still underway, although early findings are positive from follow-up in-depth interviews with a sample of local GPs and pharmacists and pre and post awareness tracking research among the public.

The Department also published An Outcomes Strategy for People with COPD and Asthma in England in 2011, which sets out six high-level objectives to improve outcomes in these areas through high quality prevention, detection, treatment and care services, and the National Health Service Companion Document to the Outcomes Strategy, setting out how the NHS can implement changes at a local level in 2012.