World Asthma Day
The third May 2016 is World Asthma Day, an annual event organised by the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA), to improve asthma awareness and care around the world
Why not take the opportunity to review and improve the asthma care in your practice using the PCRS-UK National Review of Asthma Deaths (NRAD) worksheet1.
NRAD, published in May 2014, reported on data from 195 people thought to have died from asthma over a 12-month period2. Of those who died, over two thirds were found to have had avoidable factors that might have prevented their death. The report suggested that delivering asthma care in line with national guidance and ensuring there are appropriate systems in place for high quality review could make a significant difference to outcomes for people with asthma.
Simple steps you can take to review asthma care in your practice:
- Structured review. Check whether your patients are being reviewed annually and more frequently if symptoms/disease require it.
- Asthma action plans for all. Audit how many people have been given a personal asthma plan or had an existing plan reviewed in the past 12 months.
- Review non-attenders, identifying those at risk
- Identify high SABA users. Look for those who have requested 12 or more short acting beta agonists (SABA) in the previous year and prioritise those patients for review.
- Identify patients on long-acting beta-agonists (LABA) without inhaled corticosteroids (ICS). Review these patients and change medication to combination therapy (LABA and ICS) where appropriate to do so.
- Appoint a clinical lead for asthma
- Ensure all staff have the training required to delivery respiratory services and are competent for their role3
- References:
- PCRS-UK NRAD worksheet: See HERE
- NRAD. Why Asthma Still Kills: See HERE
- PCRS-UK Nurse Skills Document: See HERE
The PCRS-UK does not guarantee, and accepts no legal liability for, the accuracy, reliability, currency or completeness of any archived material or linked website. This is an archived resource/news item