Overview
Pulmonary rehabilitation
We offer (pulmonary) rehabilitation programmes for people with lung conditions who experience breathlessness in daily life.
Our pulmonary rehabilitation programmes include education and exercise. They'll help improve your symptoms and make daily life easier.
The benefits of the programmes can include:
- helping you walk further
- reducing breathlessness during daily activities, such as walking or going up stairs
- increasing your physical activity
- gaining confidence to be more active and exercise safely
- improving your quality of life
- helping manage your lung condition
- a chance to meet people with similar conditions and share experiences
Your muscles become stronger and become better at using oxygen. This makes you less breathless and tasks become easier. You'll start to feel better and want to continue being active.
Group classes and home programme
We offer face-to-face pulmonary rehabilitation exercise classes and a home-based exercise programme.
Each face-to-exercise class includes:
- warm-up, exercise session and cool down
- a talk by a healthcare professional on a topic relevant to your condition
The class is run in groups of 8 to 16 people and is led by our specialist respiratory physiotherapists. Other health professionals support when needed.
Face-to-face exercise programmes run at St Thomas' Hospital on:
- Monday and Thursday
- Tuesday and Thursday
Our home-based exercise programme runs over 7 weeks and includes:
- personalised exercises to follow 3 times a week
- an exercise book
- an oxygen and heart rate monitor
Our team will contact you each week to review your progress.
We match our exercise programmes to your ability. You'll get moderately out of breath when exercising. This is important to improve your symptoms. We'll never ask you to do more than is safe.
Our ethos and culture
- We aim to provide a high quality, effective and supportive service.
- We're inclusive and committed to improving access for patients.
- Our encouraging environment:
- develops physical function
- provides peer support
- improves mental wellbeing
- We support you to breathe better and do more independently.
- We provide the highest quality gold standard pulmonary rehabilitation based on the most up to date guidelines and research.
- We support further research.
- We welcome the views of all our patients and develop our services in line with what they say.
- We're committed to the Trust values.
Health information
The British Lung Foundation website has information about pulmonary rehabilitation and support for you.
Our consultants
Amy Dewar, respiratory consultant
Jocelin Hall
Research and clinical trials
Research is vital to improving the care that you receive when you're unwell. You can help improve healthcare by taking part in research studies at our Trust. During your appointment, ask your healthcare professional about research. They'll be happy to tell you about research studies you could be eligible to join.
Last updated: May 2023
