Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the number of high dose steroids a severe asthma patient would be prescribed for including that category of condition in the shielded patient list during the covid-19 outbreak is in line with the recommendation made by the Royal College of Physicians in Why asthma still kills: the National Review of Asthma Deaths.

The decision to include people with severe respiratory conditions including all cystic fibrosis, severe asthma and severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease on the shielded patient list was taken by expert doctors in England who identified specific medical conditions that, based on what we knew about the virus so far, would place someone at greatest risk of severe illness from COVID-19.

These were signed off by the UK Senior Clinicians Group (including the four United Kingdom Chief Medical Officers and clinical leadership at NHS England and NHS Improvement, NHS Digital and Public Health England).