Asthma: annual review

Indicator

The percentage of patients with asthma on the register, who have had an asthma review in the preceding 12 months that includes an assessment of asthma control using a validated asthma control questionnaire (including assessment of short acting beta agonist use), a recording of the number of exacerbations and a written personalised action plan.

Introduction

Published evidence suggests that both people with asthma and clinicians tend to underestimate asthma severity and overestimate asthma control when simply asking a patient ‘How is your asthma?’. Asthma control questionnaires assess asthma related quality of life, with evidence (NICE, NG80 Asthma: diagnosis, monitoring and chronic asthma management) that a validated questionnaire can lead to reduced exacerbations.

Assessing use of short acting beta agonists (SABAs) and recording exacerbations can help identify people with asthma who are at increased risk of poor outcomes.

People with asthma can use information and advice from these reviews to inform their self-management, maximising their future health.

Resource impact

This revised indicator may change the content of some existing asthma reviews. Including a review of SABAs use may take more time while there may also be savings from reduced use of SABAs.

Overall, the resource impact of the proposed indicator is unlikely to be significant.