The number of people being rushed to hospital because of their asthma is the same as it was in 2000 - and at an annual cost of £10m, Asthma UK Scotland has said new approaches are urgently needed for both health and economic benefits. Asthma UK Scotland has been collecting the total number of admissions for asthma over the last forty years. Over the last ten years, rates of adult admissions have hovered around 4,000 per year and rates of child admissions (14 and under) have hovered around 2,000 per year.

ISD Scotland estimated the cost to the NHS in Scotland for treating patients admitted to hospital as emergency admissions with asthma in the financial year 2008/09 as £10,491,000. Asthma UK Scotland estimate that 75% of admissions are avoidable and that an emergency admission is about 3.5 times the cost of treating someone effectively in primary care.

The release of these figures coincides with the launch of Asthma UK's Guide to Good Asthma Care for Adults and Children with Asthma. The guide is written for all people with asthma including their families and carers.

Other objectives of the guide include:

- To identify how services can be delivered to improve the health and social wellbeing of children and young people and adults with asthma.

- To inform health, social and community services of what is required to provide comprehensive care.

- For people with asthma to know what they can expect from health and social care.

Asthma UK Scotland National Director, Gordon Brown, says: 'The introduction of the Guide to Good Asthma Care for Adults and Children with Asthma to NHS Scotland will assist health boards to implement and monitor appropriate care and to work in partnership with people with asthma leading to a reduction in avoidable admissions for children and adults with asthma. It complements many of the pledges in the Scottish Government's own recently published Quality Improvement Framework. We hope it will also influence politicians and health services to radically improve asthma services.

'There are pockets of good practice across the country and we know every health board has its own strategy for addressing admission rates. However, our figures clearly show that these have not had an impact.'

Brown continues: 'We want to work closely with the NHS both at national and local level to share their burden of care. There are many ways we can do this - particularly through the promotion of self-management.

'The majority of life threatening asthma attacks could be avoided through better routine asthma management and the use of tools such as personal asthma action plans. Asthma UK Scotland's advice for everyone with asthma is to have an action plan as those with a plan are four times less likely to suffer a serious asthma attack requiring hospital treatment. Asthma action plans play a key part in helping people to stay in control of their asthma.

'Completed by your doctor or nurse in consultation with you, it contains details about your asthma medicines, how to tell when your symptoms are getting worse and what to do, including in the case of an asthma attack.'

Asthma UK Scotland urges health boards to utilise the Guide to Good Asthma Care for Adults and Children with Asthma to ensure a high standard of care and treatment for all people with asthma.

Source:
Asthma UK Scotland