Asthma toolkit

Asthma is a common condition that accounts for 2-3% of primary care consultations, 60,000 hospital admissions, and 200,000 bed days per year in the UK. It can seriously affect a person’s quality of life and in some cases can be life threatening. In England, people living with asthma and the systems supporting them are experiencing challenges including early and accurate diagnosis, appropriate treatment and good education to enable self-management.

RightCare Asthma Toolkit

Developed in partnership with the National Clinical Director for Respiratory Disease, Andrew Menzies-Gow, this Asthma Toolkit will support systems to understand the priorities in asthma care and key actions to take. It provides opportunity to assess and benchmark current systems to find opportunities for improvement. It  has been produced with reference to both an expert group of stakeholders and in line with current  NICE guidelines.

Wider consultation has taken place with patient representatives, clinicians, primary care, professional bodies and other key stakeholders.

Commissioners responsible for supporting people with asthma for their population should:

  • Use the asthma toolkit to work across systems ensuring that where possible the following improvement priorities are applied:
    • Risk factors that can exacerbate asthma
    • Environmental factors for consideration
    • Early diagnosis and accurate diagnosis
    • Optimal management and personalised care
    • Referral and system communication
    • Medicines optimisation including inhaler technique and adherence
    • Support for specific patient groups including children and young people, people with learning disabilities, people with mental ill health, and pregnancy.
    • Mental health and emotional wellbeing support
    • Experience of care
  • Use the self-assessment questionnaire to baseline your services and assess the extent of your improvement activity. An interactive version is available on RightCare FutureNHS (please note membership is required).

Relevant links to support implementation are included throughout this resource.