Child and Young Person Asthma 2021 Organisational Audit: Summary report

The National Asthma and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Audit Programme (NACAP) has published its latest report on child and young person asthma. Based on data collected between 4 October and 5 November 2021, the report presents information on the structure and resourcing of 136 out of 143 (95%) hospital-based services that provide acute asthma care to children and young people (CYP) in England and Wales. It also measures data against the key performance indicators (KPIs) recommended by NACAP to support good practice in the delivery of acute asthma care. Findings (compared to NACAP’s first CYP organisational audit on data from June 2019 to January 2020) include:

• The proportion of hospitals participating in the audit increased to 95%
• There has been a significant improvement in the provision of spirometry and fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) diagnostic tools to diagnose asthma, and
• While there may have been an improvement in hospitals offering some aspects of transition for CYP with asthma, the overall quality of transition is still suboptimal.

The report also found that there has been no overall improvement in the provision of respiratory nurse specialists or designation of a named asthma lead. As such, it recommends that all hospitals that manage CYP with acute asthma should have a respiratory nurse specialist with dedicated time for inpatient care, with an improvement target of 85%. Read the full report: You can read the report by clicking on the link below. Stay-up-to-date: For notifications of future reports from HQIP, sign up to our mailing list.