Guidance

This asthma pathway links to recommendations and resources from the British Thoracic Society (BTS), National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) on diagnosing, monitoring and managing asthma in adults, young people and children.

Last reviewed: 27 November 2024

This asthma pathway contains

  • BTS/NICE/SIGN collaborative guideline
  • BTS/SIGN guidance
  • NICE technology appraisal guidance
  • Scottish Medicines Consortium guidance
  • NICE products on asthma.

BTS and SIGN have retained the recommendations on non-pharmacological management, managing acute attacks and managing difficult asthma.

See also, the NICE topic page on asthma and the NICE quality standard on asthma.

Future/planned updates: BTS and SIGN have been working together to agree on the actions to be taken in relation to revalidating/updating the areas covered in the BTS/SIGN British guideline on the management of asthma (SIGN 158) that fall outside the scope of the collaborative guideline.

Details on the approach can be found in the scoping summary.

For queries, contact asthma enquiries.

This pathway was developed jointly by the British Thoracic Society (BTS), National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN). The recommendations in this pathway represent the view of BTS, NICE and SIGN, arrived at after careful consideration of the evidence available.

Your responsibility

The recommendations in this guideline represent the view of NICE, arrived at after careful consideration of the evidence available. When exercising their judgement, professionals and practitioners are expected to take this guideline fully into account, alongside the individual needs, preferences and values of their patients or the people using their service. It is not mandatory to apply the recommendations, and the guideline does not override the responsibility to make decisions appropriate to the circumstances of the individual, in consultation with them and their families and carers or guardian.

All problems (adverse events) related to a medicine or medical device used for treatment or in a procedure should be reported to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency using the Yellow Card Scheme.

Local commissioners and providers of healthcare have a responsibility to enable the guideline to be applied when individual professionals and people using services wish to use it. They should do so in the context of local and national priorities for funding and developing services, and in light of their duties to have due regard to the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination, to advance equality of opportunity and to reduce health inequalities. Nothing in this guideline should be interpreted in a way that would be inconsistent with complying with those duties.

Commissioners and providers have a responsibility to promote an environmentally sustainable health and care system and should assess and reduce the environmental impact of implementing NICE recommendations wherever possible.