BBO Training

Course Overview

This comprehensive one-day COPD Update course is designed for registered healthcare professionals already delivering COPD care within Primary Care settings.

The programme builds on existing clinical experience and focuses on current evidence, evolving guideline recommendations, and complex decision-making in COPD management. Teaching is aligned with NICE NG115 and the latest GOLD strategy updates.

The course emphasises inhaler optimisation, exacerbation risk reduction, personalised pharmacological strategies (including eosinophil-guided ICS use), and the safe management of advanced disease. Participants will explore practical approaches to structured COPD reviews, inhaler switching, and minimising avoidable harm.

Learning is case-based and clinically focused, supporting practitioners in refining COPD services within their practice.

Who Should Attend

This course is suitable for:

• Practice Nurses delivering COPD reviews
• Advanced Clinical Practitioners
• General Practitioners
• Primary Care Pharmacists
• Respiratory leads within practices or PCNs

Participants should already have experience conducting COPD reviews and prescribing inhaled therapy.

What This Course Covers

Diagnostic and Guideline Refinement

• Revisiting COPD diagnostic criteria
• Spirometry interpretation refresh
• GOLD 2024 patient grouping (A/B/E)
• Alignment and differences between GOLD and NICE
• Applying guidance safely in Primary Care

Pharmacological Optimisation

• LABA, LAMA and ICS combinations
• When to initiate triple therapy
• Blood eosinophils and ICS decision-making
• Avoiding inappropriate ICS use
• Inhaler switching and device optimisation
• Deprescribing considerations
• Polypharmacy and comorbidity

Exacerbation Prevention and Management

• Identifying frequent exacerbators
• Strategies to reduce lung attacks
• Rescue packs and steroid stewardship
• Vaccination and pulmonary rehabilitation
• Self-management planning
• When to escalate or refer

Advanced and End-Stage Disease

• Managing severe COPD
• Breathlessness management strategies
• Long-term oxygen therapy overview
• Palliative care considerations
• Advance care planning conversations
• Holistic, patient-centred approaches

Case-Based Clinical Discussion

• Complex patient scenarios
• Inhaler optimisation challenges
• Comorbidity management
• Service improvement discussion

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Apply current GOLD and NICE guidance confidently
• Stratify COPD patients by exacerbation risk
• Optimise inhaled therapy safely and appropriately
• Use eosinophil counts to inform ICS decisions
• Reduce exacerbation frequency through structured review
• Manage advanced COPD within Primary Care scope
• Recognise when referral or palliative input is required

Course Format

Duration: Full-day (approximately 6 hours teaching time)

Delivery: Virtual or face-to-face

Format includes:

• Structured teaching sessions
• Case-based discussion
• Clinical scenario analysis
• Peer learning and problem-solving

Certification

Certificate of attendance provided for CPD and revalidation purposes.