The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has issued an updated quality standard, which focusses on diagnosis, monitoring and management of asthma in individuals of all age groups, with respect to high-quality care in priority areas for improvement.
The key goals of the quality standard are improvements in the following areas:
- Hospital and emergency department admissions;
- Mortality;
- Frequency of asthma attacks;
- Absence from work/school due to sickness; and
- Health-related QoL.
The quality standard covers the following 5 updated recommendations:
- Individuals aged ≥5 years with suspected asthma should undergo objective tests to support diagnosis.
- Individuals with asthma aged ≥5 years should receive a written personalised action plan after discussion and agreement.
- Individuals with asthma should undergo monitoring of asthma control at every asthma review.
- Individuals treated for an asthma attack in an emergency care setting should receive a follow-up from their general practitioner within 2 working days of discharge.
- Individuals with suspected severe asthma should be referred to a specialist multidisciplinary severe asthma service.
Health professionals should also take into consideration the quality standards on ‘Emergency and acute medical care in over 16s’, ‘Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in adults’, ‘Transition from children's to adults' services’, ‘Medicines optimisation’, and ‘Smoking: supporting people to stop’, when providing services for asthma.
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