Alison Summerfield, Nurse Consultant – Paediatric Respiratory & Allergy

We now have sixty-nine schools (both state and independent) within the borough that are certified as “Asthma Friendly”. Asthma friendly status is awarded annually to those schools who have  achieved our set criteria based on the London Asthma Standards.

• Named ‘Asthma Champion’ – individual responsible for asthma in school
  • Responsible for linking with community asthma services
  • Attends annual Schools Asthma Workshop
• Register of all known asthmatics
• Clear asthma policy
• Management plan for known asthmatics
• Accessible inhalers for all children with asthma
• Annual whole school staff training – minimum of 85 per cent staff attendance
• Display of emergency plan
• Emergency inhalers
• Annual asthma audit completed by School Nurse / Nurse Specialist

Our next biannual workshop aimed at and delivered for school welfare staff in managing Asthma and Allergies in school will be held in October.

Within our acute service all paediatric medical & nursing staff have received training to enable them to undertake a structured asthma review so that all patients attending acutely, no matter when the present will have their asthma assessed.

100 per cent of children over the age of five presenting with asthma are offered an appointment in a clinic within the community led by one of the specialist nurses from the team.

We have embraced and implemented the North West London inhaler guidelines both within in the hospital acute setting and sharing such practice with our primary care colleagues.

Our next steps…we aim to embark on a role-modelling clinic rolled out across the borough, supporting and up-skilling practice nurses within primary care, developing relationships further through this collaborative shared model of care for children with asthma.