Asthma
Asthma is the most common long-term medical condition affecting children and young people. 1 in 11 children and young people are affected by the condition, meaning 240,000 have asthma in London. Many have badly managed asthma – to the extent that 4,000 are admitted to hospital with asthma every year and 170 have such a severe episode that they require admission to intensive care.
Browse our content to learn more about children and young people (CYP) asthma and the latest work, resources and developments from the NHS England – London CYP asthma programme.
Featured London region work
- #AskAboutAsthma 2022 campaign highlights and plans for #AskAboutAsthma 2023
- London asthma standards for children and young people
- London’s ambitions for asthma care for children and young people
- London asthma toolkit for children and young people
- Webinars and virtual event recordings
- Updated London schools’ guide for the care of children and young people with asthma
- Children and young people’s asthma fact sheet
Stay up to date on our work
- Join our mailing list to hear the latest news and updates on London CYP asthma.
- Colleagues in and out of London can also request to join the London region FutureNHS collaboration workspace for CYP Asthma.
Why we are focusing on children and young people’s asthma
Children die in London every year because of asthma. Poorly controlled asthma affects every aspect of children and young people’s lives – their ability to learn, enjoy time outside the school with friends or take part in sport.
It also affects their time with their families and how they sleep.
Contact us
If you have any questions or would like to learn more about getting involved, please contact the NHS England (London region) children and young people’s asthma team on: england.cyptransformationldn@nhs.net.
We have developed a set of ambitions for how asthma care should be delivered across the city.
The London asthma standards for children and young people bring together these ambitions for London with national and local standards. These standards were most recently revised in December 2021. If you would like more background information about the standards, including the group that compiled and revised them, please see this version from 2020.
The online London asthma toolkit is available to support healthcare professionals, commissioners, schools, parents, carers, children and young people in London implement the asthma standards for children and young people.
Research to understand preventable factors involved in an asthma attack is also underway as part of an audit of asthma attack incidences in general practice, urgent care centres and A&Es.
Our work to transform the care of children and young people in London with asthma through the development of the London Asthma Standard has been published in NICE’s Shared Learning Collection as a supporting resource for others to learn from and can accessed here.
The Digital Health Passport pilot was commissioned by the Transformation Partners in Health and Care (TPHC) to enable sharing of care plans and to support self-management of chronic conditions like asthma in response to Coroners Section 28 notices on child deaths from asthma. It is developed by Tiny Medical Apps and co-produced with young people, school nurses, GPs and asthma specialists, the app can be downloaded from the NHS Apps Library. It is a personal health record and assistant that enables young people aged 13-21 years old to take control of their health. It contains a digital asthma action plan and method of tracking symptoms that the young person can choose to share with their healthcare team if they want to. Asthma action plans can also be shared with school nurses, parents and carers. It is designed to make long term conditions easier to manage.
The app can be downloaded from the NHS App page.
The final report and recommendations can be found here.