Source: International Congress 2016 – Non-inflammatory assessment of airway disorders
Disease area: Airway diseases

Abstract

Background and Aims: Our hospital has one of the highest rates in the North West of England for asthma admissions. The respiratory team in 2010 consisted of just one asthma specialist nurse, based off the acute site, providing a largely outpatient service. In 2014, the department gained another specialist asthma nurse and the accessibility to the service was increased with extra clinic sessions and an open access policy for patients requiring advice. The aim of our study was to review if this would influence the admission rate and presentation to the Accident and Emergency department (A&E).Data Collection: We compared A&E presentations and admissions due to acute asthma for the period 1^st August 2010 to 31^st July 2011 and 2014-2015. Furthermore we compared this to the outpatient clinic numbers for the corresponding periods to see if there was any change in activity.Results: In 2010-11, 522 patients presented to the A&E department with acute asthma and out of those 219 were admitted. In 2014-15 there were 439 presentations and 174 admissions; a 15% and 20% reduction respectively. For the corresponding years it was noted that the outpatient activity increased by 23%.Conclusion: We have shown that with open access to clinics we can reduce acute admissions but at a cost of more patients seen in clinics. This is preferable to acute presentations and admissions from A&E. We believe this is achieved by enabling patients to receive prompt assessment and treatment of unstable symptoms before they deteriorate, thus decreasing the need for A&E presentations and admissions, this reduces overall cost to the health service.


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Helen Goldstein (Wigan , United Kingdom), Helen Goldstein, Sandra Dermott, Imran Aziz. Does increasing the access to specialist respiratory team reduce the presentation and admission of acute asthma to hospital?. Eur Respir J 2016; 48: Suppl. 60, 1017

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