Respiratory services

South Tyneside District Hospital

The Acute Respiratory Assessment Service (ARAS) provides a specialist service for the assessment, management and treatment maximisation of patients with respiratory conditions who live in South Tyneside. The team works across both primary and secondary care liaising closely with GPs, primary care staff, community matrons and acute consultants to assess and treat patients in South Tyneside aiming to prevent hospital admission. Where patients are admitted to hospital with a worsening of their respiratory condition the service will aim to facilitate assisted discharge of patients from hospital and provide on-going community support in the form of home visits and monitoring.

Other services:

• Provision of patients for home oxygen therapy (on discharge from hospital only)
• Pulmonary Rehabilitation
• Non-invasive therapy
• Outpatient nurse led clinics
• Nebuliser provision
• Education Programmes

Sunderland Royal Hospital

We have an extensive inpatient and outpatient Respiratory medicine service within Sunderland Royal Hospital.

E54 is our acute respiratory ward; it has 28 beds, accommodating both male and female patients with a variety of respiratory diseases. The ward offers an acute non-invasive ventilation service, with dedicated beds and highly skilled staff.

The hospital also has a dedicated Chest Clinic in the main Outpatients department.

The Pulmonary Function department is located in the Chest Clinic and offers a wide variety of extensive lung function tests.
Our Respiratory Consultants help patients with a variety of Chest problems including, COPD, Asthma, IPF, Bronchiectasis, Lung cancer and Tuberculosis.

Our specialist nurses provide nurse led clinics every week including Smoking Cessation and a designated Learning Disabilities Clinic which has been adapted to patient needs. Our Specialist nurses also offer telephone advice and ward visits to support patients and staff.

The department also boasts a comprehensive sleep service with full diagnostic sleep studies and provision of CPAP therapy.

There are approximately 400 new lung cancer patients per annum – the LCNS offers ongoing support from diagnosis. There are four nurse led clinic’s per week plus support and advise within ward area for all patients with lung cancer.