Hospital air pollution cases ‘treble in six years’
THE number of hospital appointments for health problems linked to air pollution has almost trebled in six years.
Figures from NHS hospitals in England last year show there were 7,560 appointments for patients whose medics believed poor air quality was a contributory factor to their ill health.
Polluted air can aggravate preexisting respiratory problems such as asthma. But there is also evidence that long-term exposure can cause the development of heart disease, strokes, lung cancer and respiratory disease.
Medics must fill out forms probing other factors that may affect a patient’s health, and they are increasingly logging air pollution as a contributory factor.
The figure is up from 6,312 the previous year and from just 2,550 six years ago. Separate NHS hospital figures show admissions of asthma sufferers hit record levels of almost 80,000 last year.
This month nine-year-old Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah became the first person in the UK to have air pollution as a factor in her death at an inquest. She died from an asthma attack and had lived near the South Circular Road, in Lewisham, South London.
A monitoring station found air pollution levels “consistently” exceeded EU limits.
Public Health
England urged local authorities to discourage highly polluting vehicles from entering populated areas.
Dr Andy Whittamore, clinical lead at Asthma UK and the British Lung Foundation, said: “These figures make for troubling reading. The Government needs to set out a health protection plan to protect us all from toxic air.”
Boris Johnson has said new petrol and diesel cars and vans will not be sold in the UK from 2030 as part of the Government’s “green industrial revolution”.