Preventing COPD with asthma care

Five years ago, the National Review of Asthma Deaths (NRAD) highlighted the disappointing, yet promising, statistic that two-thirds of asthma deaths could be prevented. What led to the NRAD was the UK's long-stagnant death rate from asthma of 1200 people a year. Since its release in 2014, only one of 19 recommendations has seen partial progress. Even more alarmingly, the death rate has not only failed to decline, it has not even remained stagnant, instead rising by 8% from 2017 to 2018, with 1400 people dying from asthma in the UK in 2018. In fact, According to Asthma UK, its recent analysis of new Office of National Statistics figures has revealed an even bleaker picture—that the death rate of asthma has risen by 33% in the last decade. As a result. Asthma UK is calling on the NHS for urgent action in response to the situation which it has described as ‘a lack of basic asthma care’(The Pharmaceutical Journal, 2019).