Diagnosis and management of childhood asthma in primary care

In the UK, the latest figures indicate that a total of 5.4 million people currently receive treatment for asthma, with more than 6000 acute hospital admissions each year.¹

Some 1.1 million of these are children over the age of five years; the equivalent of three children in every UK classroom. On average, a child is admitted to hospital with an acute asthma exacerbation every 20 minutes.²

Unfortunately, asthma still accounts for approximately 1200 deaths each year in the UK, a figure that has remained largely unchanged for many years.³ In fact, comparisons of international asthma death rates in people aged five-34 years between 2001 and 2010 show that the UK asthma mortality is one of the highest in Europe.⁴