Meet the team (photos to come)
Respiratory nurses work across Northumberland and offer care to patients in hospital, outpatient clinics, patients’ homes, and over the phone. They work with other health professionals to support people to manage their respiratory symptoms as best as possible and are often the key link in co-ordinating respiratory care.
Marie Harrison – Lead Respiratory Specialist Nurse
Angela Rose - Respiratory Specialist Nurse
Angela Moody - Respiratory Specialist Nurse
Louise Lilley - Respiratory Specialist Nurse
Kathryn Ball - Respiratory Specialist Nurse
Helen Broatch - Respiratory Specialist Nurse
Rachel McLellan - Respiratory Specialist Nurse
Rachael Henderson – Support Worker
Respiratory nurses provide specialist care to people with respiratory diseases including Asthma, COPD, Bronchiectasis and Bronchitis. Nurse led clinics include community visits. The key roles of the respiratory nurses are to offer:
- Support and advice
- Explanations about respiratory difficulties and treatments
- Education to support patients to self-manage their disease.
- Referrals to other services, for both patients and families.
Patients are usually referred to this service from the General Practitioner (GP) or Respiratory specialist doctors. People can also be referred from other members of the respiratory team e.g., physiotherapists or pharmacists.
People can be referred to the respiratory nursing team from the community, whilst in hospital, and/or following discharge from hospital.
Respiratory nurses use a range of assessments to better understand your symptoms and guide personalised treatment.
Depending on your clinical needs and your preferred clinic type, respiratory nurses can offer care via telephone, or face to face. You will usually receive and appointment letter in the post but sometimes, especially for more urgent contacts, you may receive a phone call without an appointment letter.
Respiratory nurses will explore several factors relating to your respiratory difficulties. They will want to know:
- When you were diagnosed with respiratory disease, and who made this diagnosis e.g. GP or a Respiratory doctor in a hospital
- What inhalers you have been prescribed, and how often you take these
- Smoking history
- How much you are able to exercise
- Vaccination History
Treatment will be personalised for each individual but broadly it will include:
- Education about your respiratory disease
- Exercises that can help your breathing
- Lifestyle advice
- Medication review
- Inhaler technique review
- Talking to your other respiratory healthcare team
Clinic slots usually last about 20 mins, treatment could be long term.
No, but hopefully your nursing team can help to improve your overall health, and support you to better control your respiratory disease, to reduce the severity of symptoms and reduce the impact that symptoms have upon your quality of life.
Videos on breathing control and sputum clearance
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General information about COPD: https://
Inhaler technique: https://
Learning from the pandemic: https://