Asthma: Drugs
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of (a) trends in the level of variation in access to NICE-recommended biologic medicines for severe asthma.
Answered by Dr Zubir Ahmed
No assessment has been made. NHS England is working with the health innovation networks and has formed the Respiratory Transformation Partnership. Focusing on improving the outcomes of people living with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), this programme seeks to find scalable ways to decrease premature mortality and bed occupancy from respiratory diseases. Initiatives will seek to improve disease recognition, optimise delivery of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) approved approaches at neighbourhood level, and uptake of existing and emerging biologic therapies.
The current NHS England severe asthma service specification is being revised by the Specialised Respiratory Clinical Reference Group. The current service specification is available at the following link:
The revised specification will support the management of patients who require further investigation and treatments including biological medicines. The specification will also be updated to reference the most recent clinical guidelines such as the British Thoracic Society, NICE, and the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network asthma guideline covering diagnosing, monitoring, and managing asthma in adults, young people, and children, and which is expected to improve outcomes for people with asthma and identify early those who require further investigation and treatments including biologic medicines. This guideline is available at the following link:
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