Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to help support people with asthma in Birmingham Perry Barr constituency.

The Birmingham and Solihull Integrated Care System (BSol ICS) is working to enhance asthma care, which includes access to diagnostics in the community, across the city and the borough. Improved rates of diagnosis will allow early intervention and prevention, supporting patients to manage their condition more effectively at home or in the community, and preventing emergency hospital admissions.

In primary care, adults, children, and young people can access support from their general practice (GP) for diagnosis and ongoing management of the condition, treatment of mild exacerbations, and asthma annual reviews to optimise treatment and prevent exacerbations.

Adults, children, and young people have access to outpatient reviews by community respiratory specialist nurses through GP referrals to the Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. These reviews are for patients requiring specialist support, where their condition is not severe enough to require secondary care.

In December 2024, the BSol ICS’s Community Care Collaborative launched a Respiratory Same Day Emergency Care Service at Washwood Health and Wellbeing Centre. The service is in particular responding to the issue that 40% of those admitted to Birmingham Heartlands Hospital have respiratory illness. The service is for patients aged 17 years old and over from any part of Birmingham and Solihull who have chronic respiratory conditions, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, pneumonia, respiratory failure, bronchiectasis, and interstitial lung disease. Patients who access the service are then either discharged, followed-up with a GP, admitted to a virtual ward, also known as hospital at home, or referred to a community respiratory service.

For children and young people, the Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust’s Department of Respiratory Medicine and Cystic Fibrosis treats children and young people aged between zero and 18 years old with asthma, including 40 to 50 with difficult asthma, who are receiving specialised treatments.

The BSol ICS has also established a Paediatric Asthma Network which has been leading a number of workstreams focused on improving asthma education, training, post-asthma attack management, and the creation of a novel risk stratification tool to identify children with high risk of asthma attacks. The BSol ICB has also provided funding to support the creation of new asthma clinics, specialist asthma nurses, and asthma-friendly school initiatives. 75% of children who had a second review at these clinics showed significant improvement in their asthma control test, suggesting improved disease control. 100% of children who attended the clinics had a reduction in asthma-related hospital accident and emergency department visits over the subsequent six months.