We are built on our close collaboration with people with lung conditions, patient organisations, healthcare professionals and the public. Here, you can find out how we do this and what groups we work with.
The ELF Council is the organisation’s main controlling body. They are responsible for the work plan, activities and financial control of ELF. The council work to guide ELF and provide an overview of its activities.
Half of the ELF Council is made up of patient members. These include the ELF Chair (who is appointed via an interview process), the Chair of the Patient Advisory Committee (elected by the Patient Advisory Committee), a representative of the European Patient Ambassador Programme (elected by the EPAP Patient Advisory Group) and a representative of a European patient umbrella organisation (by invitation).
When ELF was launched, the ELF Chair was an ERS member, then an ERS member who was an allied health professional and now they must be a person with a lung condition. The remaining half of the council is made up of European Respiratory Society (ERS) members including the President, President-Elect, Treasurer, Secretary General and Advocacy Chair.
The Patient Advisory Committee is made up of European respiratory patient organisations, with members representing different conditions, to ensure all lung conditions are represented equally. The aim is to develop a united voice of respiratory patient organisations across Europe.
The Patient Advisory Committee work with ELF to provide high-quality lung health information, develop health awareness and education initiatives, and make sure the patient voice is represented across ERS activities, such as developing guidelines and in conferences.
The Professional Advisory Committee is made up of a group of ERS specialists and professionals from primary care selected from across Europe. They guide ELF on the topics to write about, and assess all written material made available online, to ensure content is accurate and reliable.
Our Professional Advisory Committee are all members of the European Respiratory Society (ERS).
The United Patient Advisory Group is made up of one representative from each of the Patient Advisory Groups. They discuss best practice and common issues that arise between different lung conditions.
The Patient Organisation Network includes over 200 organisations worldwide covering over 40 different lung conditions. They input into ELF activities and share with us the news of what they have been working on to improve lung health globally.
These groups lead the work ELF does in specific disease areas. The members of these groups are individual patients, carers or patient organisation representatives across 13 different disease areas:
Our team of translators and early career members offer support for translations and writing lay summaries. The early career members are ERS members who are starting out in their medical careers; translators can be any ERS member.
The MEP Lung Health Group is an informal platform for policymakers, health professionals and patients to identify the potential EU policy measures aimed at improving lung health. The MEP Lung Health Group coordinate joint advocacy work, statements and activities at the European Union level. ERS and European umbrella patient organisations steer and guide the work of the group and are supported by all other patient and professional organisations across Europe.
The ELF office is based in Sheffield in the UK and Brussels in Belgium. The team take care of the day-to-day running of ELF. They plan our events, coordinate our work with patients and healthcare professionals, and produce the materials on our website. If you contact us, via the website or our social media channels, this is the team you will reach.
