Plan to reduce asthma dangers

IT’S easy to see how routines can go out of the window once summer hits, which is why Asthma UK is launching a campaign urging parents to maintain their child’s usual preventer medicine routine over the school break. This will help to protect them from an asthma attack during the summer holiday and once they go back to school.

Every 10 seconds someone has a potentially life-threatening asthma attack in the UK. In September, children are nearly three times more likely to be admitted to hospital because of an asthma attack than in August, partly due to seasonal triggers such as cold and flu viruses. If a child hasn’t kept up their preventer medicine routine over the school holidays, they will be at greater risk. By taking a few simple steps over the summer holiday, parents can keep children as well as possible:

Keep up your child’s usual preventer medicine routine (usually a brown inhaler);

make sure your child has an up to date written asthma action plan and share this with any other carers. People with asthma are four times more likely to end up in hospital for their asthma if they don’t use one;

track your child’s asthma symptoms using a diary or a symptom calendar;

and prep for going back to school by arranging an asthma review to check your child’s medicines, and make sure your child has spare reliever inhalers to take into school.

Parents concerned about their child’s asthma can speak to our nurses by calling the Asthma UK Helpline on 0300 222 5800, and can download a child’s action plan by visiting www.asthma.org.uk/advice/safer-schoolholidays. Sonia Munde, Head of Helpline and Nurse Manager at Asthma UK