Back to School Warning

Asthma UK's Chief Executive, Neil Churchill

Neil Churchill - Chief Executive

Tagged: Back to school, Hospital, Asthma awareness

Just back from holiday to see our warning of a spike in child asthma hospital admissions with the beginning of the new school year in September.

In case you missed it, recently published NHS figures showed that hospital admissions for asthma among children aged 16 and under were 58 per cent higher in September 2009 than the monthly average for the year. That average is already pretty high, with a child being hospitalised every 17 minutes in the UK.

The only way to avoid a repeat in 2010 is for us all to be prepared.

Our nurses offer simple advice for children and parents which can easily be added to any Back to School preparations, alongside the inevitable larger size shirts & shoes and possible new uniform.

But this might also be a good opportunity for parents to ask schools about their asthma awareness. Since the inquest found Sam Linton’s school contributed to his death, from an asthma attack, teachers at the school have been suspended and dismissed. As a result, there is a greater appetite to listen and to act – and Asthma UK can make it easy for schools with a range of supporting material.

So, as well as making sure our kids are prepared for the new school year blues, and the stress and viruses that can trigger asthma, let’s make sure we keep up the pressure on schools to be safe for our kids too.

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excitedhamster

29 September 11
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i have 3 children with asthma while my younger son's primary is very good and they insist on have an inhaler in school, term by term updates and almost all teachers & teaching assistants are asthma aware my older son and daughter are at a high school where there seems to be no asthma aware staff or if there are we have never met or heard about them i have written many letters/emails to the school but as yet i've never had a reply, i have taken to sending my oldest daughter (asthma free) to school with a spare inhaler just incase the need arises i happy to say that most of my childrens friends are very aware of asthma and other medical conditions but i'm very annoyed the school don't seem to be bothered, time to get all school top acknowledge Asthma is more common place than they think!

tena roberts

6 September 10
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As a teacher and a lifelong asthamatic-----TALK to your child's teacher. One to one. . They do care----but don't understand. Spell it out.

elephant2001

4 September 10
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Speaking as someone in their last year in school, I can say that at the minute my asthma is signifigantly worse than normal and I'm finding it a lot more tiring and difficult to manage a full day. My school is being fantastic and are really making things easy for me, but it's still hard.

rattles

2 September 10
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We have sent Matty's hospital letters 2 explaining how severe his asthma is and transfer letter for specialist hospital. We also have a small book to record daily meds with his current meds recorded too.We checked his nebuliser and spacer have been transferred to his new class.The new teacher has read his report, I met her this morning and she looked terrified, but that is a good thing as usually they are a bit complacent. Will now just have to watch and wait!

Asthma family

2 September 10
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I can believe this too. I went into my son's school and did an asthma awareness day during the limelight week and becaus eof that the head took drastic action. She has the school nurse coming in next week on Wednesday as the jead decided to take an extra Inset day instead of having the kids back in school on Wednesday to do a training session on asthma. She has re-newed her asthma action policy and my son and my son's friend have both got a spacer bag which I made for them ready for school with a inhaler and spacer in them fully labeled and written instructions. I have a yellow sheet of laminated paper with full details of all my son's medical issues and how to detect them and what to do ready even though they already have one from last year. And with my son going into year 4 he has the clickhaler which he will have on him in a inhaler pouch which again I made but because he has a rescue dosage after 5 minutes of an attack to be given up-on ringing 999 he needs a spray inhaler and spacer which is what is in the spacer bag for if they need to take action and ring 999 and do his rescue dosage

angievere

31 August 10
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I can well believe hospital admissions of youngsters goes up in September. Personally I am dreading the new term - my son always gets colds/chest infections in the autumn/winter. And his school is very ignorant about asthma, even the so-called 'Matron'. I have spoken to and written to the various teachers so many times in two years, and they are still dismissive of my son's ongoing problems. I contacted the head of our LEA when I heard about the death of Samuel Linton, and asked what was being done to raise awareness of asthma in schools in the county. About 3 weeks later I got a response from a very junior official, listing all the government papers on the subject. It seems there has been no new initiative in the county. I thought that just about summed it up really. I find it very depressing that a child could die and education authorities are still looking the other way.

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