IPCRG 2024 news summary

Our education programmes included in-person Teach the Teacher in multiple countries such as Asthma Right Care in Panama, Costa Rica and Colombia, and also new e-learning, with the launch of a free e-learning course ‘Primary Care Education on COVID-19 and Respiratory Disease’ and the first run of Spirometry Simplified, accompanied by a masterclass at our World Conference in Athens. Spirometry Simplified aims to empower primary care clinicians worldwide by promoting the widespread and equitable adoption of spirometry - click here to find out more about the next run at our 2025 Scientific Meeting in Brasov, Romania.

As part of our capacity-building role in FRESHAIR4Life, we ran an e-learning course on developing social media campaigns for health promotion.

We launched two Desktop Helpers - user-friendly, evidence-based information sheets providing practical guidance and support for clinicians. We published Desktop Helper No.17: Breathlessness in adults: A practical guide for primary care clinicians and updated Desktop Helper No.2: A practical guide to improve difficult-to-manage asthma in primary care.

We ran workshops on breathlessness and asthma at WONCA and IPCRG conferences; click the links below to view the recordings of the IPCRG sessions we've published:

• Allergic rhinitis
• Breathlessness
• Planetary health

2024 has seen some significant developments for COPD Right Care as we finalise and release new materials and prepare to widen our social movement beyond our pilot countries, guided by our strategy document ‘What does good quality COPD care look like?’.

In early 2024, we updated our COPD Wheel in response to user feedback and produced a Greek translation, launched at our World Conference in Athens. Over 2300 wheels have been distributed so far in meetings and workshops across 12 countries.

In July, we launched our Question & Challenge Cards, a tool to start conversations between clinical peers, with people with lived experience and with students to create more awareness of shortcomings in knowledge and understanding about COPD.

On World COPD Day, we published issue 2 of our COPD Magazine, an online resource for people with COPD to support them to self-manage their COPD by noticing and managing mood and emotions, restoring energy and sleeping well, eating well, and improving sex life and relationships with others. It's had great feedback so far! We also shared several resources created during the development of issue 2: cartoons for emotional self-assessment, a set of infographics to help self-manage your COPD, and video diaries of people with COPD candidly talking about their everyday lives managing their conditions, sharing their stories and offering their advice.

In early December, we expanded our Delivery Team and presented our resources to new members from countries interested in joining the movement. Looking ahead to 2025, we will distribute our resources more widely and adapt them for use in a local context.