How should patients be educated about asthma?

Although the economy is just starting to emerge from recession, the downturn won’t hit the NHS until 2011/12. After that the health service will receive 0% or flat growth and need to find £20 billion savings just to meet the growing demands of an ageing population and ever changing medical technology.

To stay solvent, the NHS needs to change and one key way that must happen is to persuade more people with long-term conditions like asthma to look after ourselves a bit better. Key to that is education.

Now many of you who use this website are already expert patients who already have a significant influence over your care. The people who most need educating in asthma are those who are newly diagnosed (and for children their mums and dads too) for whom inhalers, airways and asthma attacks are all new.

I remember leaving the clinic after my diagnosis with only a prescription for an inhaler that I was not sure how to use. Predictably, I was soon back at the clinic being stepped up to a higher dose and it took me about a year to establish asthma control.

I’d thought that was all in the past but not so, according to the patient consultation events we helped run before Christmas. A lot of people who’d been recently diagnosed with asthma told us they got no information at all about managing the condition. Some contrasted asthma unfavourably with diabetes: many who are diagnosed with that get a ‘starter-pack’ in self-management.

Education is critical in the 21st century NHS. It will help patients look after ourselves and keep us out of GP clinics and hospital. Which in turn will make the NHS number crunchers happy too.

The question is: how should it be done? What would have done the trick for you?

Should new asthma patients get a starter-pack? If so, what should be in it? And what format would people use?

Should the NHS take advantage of ‘moments of truth’ when people are more receptive towards health messages, such as just after a hospitalisation or when you have been stepped up to a new regime?

Should people with asthma be more involved in educating others with the condition? If so how?

And should there be a Health Trainer locally who can help advise people where to go to get help?

Over the next few weeks Asthma UK will be working closely with NHS organisations about their asthma services. Your ideas are very welcome.
 

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