Community respiratory services
Adult respiratory care and rehabilitation (ARCARE) is a community and hospital respiratory service for the people of Tower Hamlets and patients admitted to The Royal London Hospital with a diagnosed chronic respiratory condition.
We provide the following services:
- Community virtual ward for respiratory
- Inpatient COPD and asthma review
- Pulmonary rehabilitation
- Diagnostic spirometry
- Home oxygen service: assessment and review
- General asthma clinic (at St Bartholomew’s Hospital)
Our team includes a respiratory consultant, respiratory nurse specialists, physiotherapists, an occupational therapist, a psychologist, a dietician, respiratory physiologists, rehab support workers, and admin support.
Our holistic approach focuses on working with our patients and their families to offer the best treatment for their condition, improve their breathing, and improve their quality of life. Here are some of feedback from patients that were under our care:
“They showed me exercises and motivated me to do the exercises. First they came to my home and then they got me to attend the centre. I completed them all and I still do the exercises at home now and then”.
Feedback gathered via interviews by Patient Experience Team via Tower Hamlets GP Care Group (August, 2023)
Referring to ARCARE
To refer to our community virtual ward for respiratory, pulmonary rehabilitation and oxygen review/assessments:
- For GPs or clinicians with EMIS access, please send a referral via Single Point of Access where additional guidance is available
For diagnostic spirometry, suspected COPD/asthma patients with symptoms please use GP Access spirometry via ERS:
- Select: specialty - lung fucntion > diagnostic physiological measurement > clinic type - respiratory, GP access spirometry - respiratory medicine - (RLH) - Barts Health NHS Trust - R1H
For all urgent queries call the triage team: 07983 177 719
For other non-urgent queries/referrals not covered by above information, please email the team or call 0208 223 8509
Adult respiratory care and rehabilitation (ARCARE) referral criteria [pdf] 256KB
Tower Hamlets community respiratory virtual ward (ARCARE) referral criteria [pdf] 151KB
Take part in research
We are a trial hospital for the IMPROVE trial and we are a recruiting hospital for the WHAM study. You need to be part of our pulmonary rehabilitation program to participate in these studies. Please speak to your healthcare team for more information.