Supporting the new
Asthma Bundle.
Discover how the Digital Health Passport can help support many of the requirements of the Asthma bundle being launched across
NHS Integrated Care Systems
“The National bundle of care for children and young people with asthma is phase one of a plan from NHS England to support integrated care systems to deliver high quality asthma care.”
What problem is it tackling?
High Prevalence
Asthma is the most common long-term medical condition in children in the UK, with around 1 in 11 children and young people living with asthma.
Poor Outcomes
The UK has one of the highest prevalence, emergency admission and death rates for childhood asthma in Europe. Outcomes are worse for children and young people living in the most deprived areas.
Improving performance
NHS England and Improvement have been working with key stakeholders, including young people and their families, to develop a National Bundle of Care for Children and Young People with Asthma to support local systems with the management of asthma care.
The programme sets out evidence-based interventions to help children, young people, families and carers, to control and reduce the risk of asthma attacks and to prevent avoidable harm.
The bundle covers the following components on the patient pathway
Environmental impacts
Accurate and early diagnosis
Effective preventative medicine
Managing exacerbations
Severe asthma
Meet the deliverables
The Digital Health Passport can help your ICS meet the deliverables with the Environmental Impacts, Accurate and Early Diagnosis and Effective Preventative Medicine categories
Environmental Impacts
National standards EI 2, EI 4
CYP, parents and carers should always receive information on how they can manage asthma with regards to air pollution. Information should be accessible in such a way that is appropriate to that CYP, this may include live updates through digital apps.
Local air quality alerts
The Digital Health Passport provides local air quality alerts and allows users to record their asthma triggers and asthma symptoms. Personalised alerts for air pollution, pollen and weather based upon location mean that the DHP can deliver the National Standard EI 2 from the Asthma Bundle. Additionally patient satisfaction surveys to include whether CYP felt equipped to manage their asthma in relation to the impact of air pollution/indoor air quality can be delivered by DHP users (National Standards EI 2 and EI 4).
Accurate and early diagnosis
National Standard EAD 4
ICSs should develop health education strategies for their local population to:
• Improve awareness about what asthma is
• Its potential severity
• Symptoms that should warrant review by a healthcare professional
Trusted Resources
The Digital Health Passport contains learning resources you need for children, young people and their carers to recognise asthma symptoms and its severity – videos, articles and quizzes – with approved content from Asthma UK, Beat Asthma and NHS.uk. There is also a symptom tracker providing a visual display of symptom frequency to assist the review by a healthcare professional.
Effective preventative medicine
National Standards (EPM 5, EPM 7, EPM 8, EPM 9)
All CYP with asthma should have a Personalised Asthma Action Plan (PAAP).
Patient self management should be encouraged to reflect their known triggers including stress and air pollution, e.g. increasing medication before the start of the hay-fever season, when there is High or Very High air pollution, avoiding non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or by the early use of oral corticosteroids with viral- or allergic-induced exacerbations.
All patient encounters should be viewed as an opportunity to improve the understanding of children and their families. Regular assessment of inhaler technique and re-training where necessary are essential to ensure effective delivery of inhaled medications.
Parents and children, and those who care for or teach them, should be educated about managing asthma. This should include emphasis on ‘how’, ‘why’ and ‘when’ they should use their asthma medications, recognising when asthma is not controlled and knowing when and how to seek emergency advice.
A home for the Personalised Asthma Action Plan
The Digital Health Passport enables the upload and sharing of Personalised Asthma Action Plans meaning that a young person virtually always has access to it, unlike the paper version.
The DHP has been co-produced with young people, school nurses, asthma nurses and specialists to support self-management. It is designed to improve skills, knowledge and confidence to self-manage asthma and to reduce emergency attendances from uncontrolled asthma.
Developmentally appropriate education resources and animations emphasise the importance of using inhalers properly, recognising symptoms and knowing when to seek help. The asthma emergency instructions are easy to access from any part of the app.
Pollution, pollen and weather change alerts help with trigger avoidance/preparation. There are medication reminder notifications to help with adherence with preventer medications.