The Asthma Podcast - Transcript April 2010

Luke: Welcome to the Asthma Podcast. Every month we’ll bring you news, research updates, asthma advice and ways you can support us.

The tragic case of 11 year old Samuel Linton who died after suffering an asthma attack at school has highlighted the urgent need for schools to do more to protect pupils with asthma. To discuss this further, we’re joined by Rosie Newbigging, Asthma UK’s Executive Director of Nations, Regions and Services. Rosie, Samuel’s case has highlighted an alarming lack of awareness of how serious asthma can be, hasn’t it?

Rosie: Absolutely, it’s a very tragic example of how asthma can be so serious that it is fatal if schools don’t act promptly and with the best knowledge available. There has been an inquest, a jury inquest into the death of Samuel Linton in Stockport and the inquest jury has found a death by natural causes but with significant contribution of neglect of both an individual and systemic level which means that there was a systems failure by the school to really act quickly when Samuel was having his asthma attack.

Luke: And we’re calling on schools to take action now to prevent tragedy such as this happening in future. What can schools do and how can we support them?

Rosie: Well there’s a lot that schools can do and should do although there’s nothing at the moment mandating schools to do that. And of course there’s a lot that we can do to support schools, we want to work with schools, we want to be supportive as we have been across the UK with many schools so far.

There’s a number of things of course, there is our Alert to Asthma program which has been delivered to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland now for some time. In Scotland in particular we’ve been able to move forward with a massive expansion of Alert to Asthma where schools in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Perth for example are all receiving Alert to Asthma training, this is really important but that’s only been possible because we’ve had funding from the Scottish Government. We’ve also delivered the training in Northern Ireland and Wales to a more limited extent and we’ve piloted it in the North West. But we’re very keen to raise more money including funding from education authorities, schools where appropriate to deliver much more Alert to Asthma.

We believe that every teacher should be trained and aware of asthma and that should be something that is regularly updated. We heard recently from a nurse in Australia who came over to visit us from South Australia and she said that in Australia it’s mandatory for all teachers who are training to be trained in asthma awareness and what to do in an event of an asthma attack and they have to be two yearly updates so we’d like something similar across the UK.

And of course, we have asthma policies that we can give to schools for them to develop in England, we have the long-term conditions medical pack which we developed in association with other charities working with people with long-term conditions like Epilepsy UK and Diabetes UK. In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland we have the standard school asthma policies. These are really important document but its really important that they aren’t just policies that sit on the shelf, they need it to go hand in hand with good training, good communication, good awareness for all staff not just teachers but lunchtime supervisors, secretarial staff, anybody who’s in the school on a regular bases.

Luke: And the Medical Conditions at School policy pack can be downloaded from medicalconditionsatschool.org.uk. And of course it’s absolutely vital that people support our work through donations isn’t it?

Rosie: Yes and that’s why we’re launching a fundraising appeal because the more money we get in, quite simply the more work that we can do to support schools, to support parents, to support children and young people. We would love to extend Alert to Asthma across the UK but we’re very limited at the moment, we’ve had a limited pilot in the North West which is where Stockport is and we’re having a conversation at the moment with the Local Education Authority in Stockport to see if we can roll out more Alert to Asthma training there but it’s needed across the UK.

Tragically unless schools take action other deaths could happen if schools don’t act quickly and if teachers and other staff don’t understand how serious asthma can be, what to do in the event of asthma attack and just how important it is to move quickly and not neglect the issue.

Luke: To find out more about this issue and how you can get involved, visit asthma.org.uk/alerttoasthma.