14 April 2026
Andrew Pritchard, Lead Clinical Scientist and Clinical Service Manager at The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust
A Cannock community respiratory centre is planning to expand its services to enhance care and support for children and young people living with respiratory conditions.
The centre at Cannock Chase Hospital aims to launch a dedicated spirometry service for children and young people aged five to 15.
This new service will support both the diagnosis and ongoing monitoring of asthma and other respiratory conditions.
Currently, the centre provides pulmonary function tests, spirometry, sleep studies and breathlessness assessments for patients aged 16 and over.
It has played a key role in moving care away from acute sites and bringing services closer to patients’ homes.
Andrew Pritchard, Lead Clinical Scientist and Clinical Service Manager at The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust, said: “By moving the majority of routine respiratory diagnostics to our community diagnostic centre we’ve improved wait times, access to testing, time to diagnosis and ultimately time to treatment.
“Access to spirometry for children is particularly limited within the local community, and we’re looking forward to delivering this pathway soon.”
Thanks to its significant diagnostic capacity, the centre also supports patients from neighbouring Trusts.
Andrew added: “We’ve got the capability to deliver routine diagnostic testing quickly, helping to reduce delays and speed up diagnosis and treatment for patients.
“We’re pleased to be able to offer this service to patients further afield who are living in Sandwell and Walsall.”
The service also offers a weekly clinic for unexplained breathlessness and was one of the first in the country to adopt this technique.
Patients who have been breathless for eight or more weeks are referred through primary care providers for testing. Diagnostics are completed within one day and sent back to the referrer with a diagnosis and plan.
To further enhance the service, the centre is awaiting a range of new equipment, including advanced lung function testing machines, additional diagnostic tools and new spirometers.