New call to action outlines priorities for improving severe asthma care

Today, to coincide with World Asthma Day, the Severe Asthma Policy Group – an AstraZeneca-led alliance of international experts in respiratory health, supported by the Secretariat, The Health Policy Partnership – has published Call to action on severe asthma.

Aiming to serve as a valuable advocacy resource for the respiratory community, the call to action outlines six priority areas for policymakers to focus on to drive meaningful change in severe asthma care:

• Committing to implementing existing clinical guidelines and quality standards for severe asthma care at the national level.
• Promoting the establishment of clear referral criteria and the implementation of streamlined care pathways, so that people with severe asthma can access specialists in a timely manner for appropriate evaluation and optimisation of care.
• Enabling healthcare professionals to promptly identify people with suspected severe asthma; and ensuring coordination between primary and specialist care by improving access to training, decision-support tools and knowledge-sharing platforms.
• Collaborating with national respiratory patient organisations to raise awareness of, and improve education about, severe asthma for everyone living with the condition.
• Tackling existing inequities and disparities in access to severe asthma care by targeting communities with the poorest outcomes.
• Developing comprehensive national respiratory strategies that enable reliable data collection and include specific goals for the diagnosis, treatment and care of severe asthma.

Severe asthma is a distinct form of asthma that affects 3–10% of the asthmatic population. It can cause people to experience repeated, life-threatening attacks that are much harder to manage, despite receiving maximum levels of standardised treatment.

The call to action has been published on the Global Allergy & Airways Patient Platform website, and has been endorsed by 28 international respiratory clinicians and 20 patient advocacy groups.

Read the call to action