In this study we will test whether it is feasible and acceptable to deliver a behaviour change intervention that aims to help healthcare professionals discuss pulmonary rehabilitation with their patients who live with a lung condition called COPD.
Over 1.2 million people living in the UK live with COPD, a lung condition which causes people to get short of breath. A treatment that helps with shortness of breath is an exercise and education programme called pulmonary rehabilitation. However, only a small number of people are referred for and start this treatment. Increasing the number of people receiving pulmonary rehabilitation is an urgent NHS priority. Despite this, effective treatments to do this are lacking. This study hopes to address this research gap by testing the feasibility and acceptability of delivering VBA for pulmonary rehabilitation in the NHS.
This research is the first study to test a co-designed behaviour change intervention that targets healthcare professionals who refer people living with COPD for pulmonary rehabilitation.
We will ask 50 healthcare workers from four GP practices and hospitals to complete VBA for pulmonary rehabilitation. This will involve completing a short e-learning training programme on pulmonary rehabilitation and how to discuss a referral with people living with COPD. We will ask the healthcare professionals to use what they learned from the e-Learning programme when discussing pulmonary rehabilitation with their COPD patients. The number of patients who are referred to and start pulmonary rehabilitation will be recorded for three months. The same information will also be collected for the same three months in the previous year to make a comparison.
We will audio-record the consultation between the 15 healthcare professionals and their COPD patients to check how the healthcare professionals discuss pulmonary rehabilitation with their patients. We will telephone the same patients to understand what they remember from the consultation.
We will also hold group meetings or interviews with 16 healthcare professionals and 16 people with COPD so they can share their opinions of VBA for pulmonary rehabilitation.
Meet the Principal Investigator(s) for the project
Dr Claire Nolan - Dr Claire Nolan is a Senior Lecturer in Physiotherapy in the Department of Health Sciences and an NIHR Advanced Fellow with clinical expertise in pulmonary rehabilitation.
Dr Nolan completed her PhD in Imperial College London in 2018 on gait speed and prognosis in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Dr Nolan’s research interests include strategies to increase engagement in and alternative models of rehabilitation programmes for people living with chronic lung conditions and multiple long-term conditions. She has expertise in intervention co-design, mixed-methodologies, as well as feasibility and randomised controlled trials.
Dr Nolan is Chair Elect of the American Thoracic Society Pulmonary Rehabilitation Assembly Programme Committee, a committee member of the NHSE National Respiratory Programme and the British Thoracic Society Quality Standards for Pulmonary Rehabilitation committee, and Impact Champion for the Department of Health Sciences, Brunel University.
Partnering with confidence
Organisations interested in our research can partner with us with confidence backed by an external and independent benchmark: The Knowledge Exchange Framework. Read more.
Project last modified 03/08/2026