Evaluating the impact of nurse practitioner involvement in a pleural procedures clinic

Incidence of pleural disease is increasing (Bhatnagar and Maskell, 2013), affecting 3000 people per million each year (Du Rand and Maskell, 2010). Patients can present with pleural effusions associated with pleural disease or other pathologies, such as alternative malignancy, infection or left ventricular failure (Bintcliffe et al, 2016). Breathlessness associated with pleural effusions can be disabling and, therefore, access to therapeutic and potential diagnostic pleural aspiration to provide immediate relief of symptoms is essential (Bintcliffe et al, 2016).

Traditional inpatient management of pleural effusions often requires protracted and costly admissions. New systems, such as outpatient pleural procedure clinics (PPC), have been developed to avoid this (Antunes et al, 2003, Hooper et al, 2015, Botana Rial et al, 2010). Outpatient pleural services aim to provide rapid access, reduce emergency hospital admissions and provide effective and safe care that is preferred by patients (Sura et al, 2012; Bhatnagar and Maskell, 2013; Devani et al, 2016).