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Asthma guidelines: are they implemented on discharge?

Darent Valley Hospital, Darenth Wood Road, Dartford, Kent

Correspondence to:
Deborah Bird, Specialist Registrar in Paediatrics, Darent Valley Hospital, Darenth Wood Road, Dartford, Kent; deborahbird@doctors.org.uk

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Asthma affects approximately 1 in 10 children in the UK.¹ The British Thoracic Soceity/Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network algorithms² are widely used; however, personal experience suggested that their recommendations for patient education were not being used. We undertook a postal questionnaire to determine whether the guidelines were being implemented as recommended.

The questionnaire was sent to 150 randomly selected NHS hospitals in England, Scotland and Wales. Of 54 replies, six were excluded because the hospitals did not have in-patient paediatric facilities, leaving 48 responses (38 district general hospitals, seven teaching hospitals and three childrens hospitals). Forty-six hospitals have written asthma guidelines, of which 18 use the BTS guidelines and 28 use local guidelines. Of the 46, 39 hospitals guidelines (85%) specified that written advice should be provided on discharge. Of these, 29 hospitals use some form of asthma action plan to give the advice.

The BTS/SIGN guidelines suggest written information . . . [Full text of this article]

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