The Asthma Podcast - Transcript August 2010

Welcome to the asthma podcast. Every month we'll bring you news, research updates and ways in which you can support us.

Vince: I am with Emily Humphreys who is the Policy and Information Manager here at Asthma UK. What is severe asthma?

Emily: Severe asthma is a more severe form of the condition that affects about 5% of people with asthma.  People with severe asthma might be taking dozens of tablets a day, lots of different medicines, but still not being able to control their symptoms. They might still be having lots of asthma attacks and frequent hospital admissions. They might not be able to work or need lots of time off work because of their asthma. They might not be able to do basic things like going to the shops or carrying their bags home or going down the stairs.This report Fighting for Breath is really about the more urgent problems with severe asthma and what it is like to live with it.Vince: What's in the report?

Emily: The report is based on interviews and discussions with people with severe asthma from around the UK. They told us that they quite often face discrimination simply because most people don't understand how serious and disabling severe asthma can be.

It is assumed that asthma is something that you can easily fix with a puff of an inhaler but we know that's not the case. People don't understand this and the result is that people might be forced out of their jobs because they can't take the time off or they might not be able to participate in things like education because the institutions don't give them the support they need. We spoke to one girl who was a student and she wasn't able to go to her lectures sometimes because of her asthma just being too bad and even though she knew that her lectures were already recordings the lectures for other campuses they refused to give them to her because they wouldn't believe her and thought she wasn't taking her course seriously so they wouldn't give her the support she needed for her education.

Vince: What does Fighting for Breath recommend?

Emily: We know from what people told us that because they are facing discrimination a lot of them are missing out on benefits. Disability assessments aren't always fair for people with severe asthma because its such a variable conditional that people might be fine one day and won't be able to go down the stairs the next day. That means it quite hard to give a fair judgment of how badly disabled they are by their condition  What we're worried about is a drive for savings in the Welfare Bill that could disproportionally affect people with severe asthma.  We know they suffer already getting access to things like Disability Living Allowance and Incapacity Benefit. So if that continues and gets worse that could be a problem for a lot of people.

Vince: Does the report make any recommendations for the health service?

Emily: We're quite concerned that specialist asthma nurse posts might be at risk from cutbacks in the NHS. We know from our discussions that a lot of people depend on them - they're an absolute lifeline. More than one person said that their specialist nurse service has either changed their life or saved it. They have also been proven to reduce the number of costly hospital admissions. Cutting back those posts, which we think is a danger with the current drive for efficiency savings, would be a real false economy. This report asks the health service to be aware of this and not let it happen.

Vince: I believe the Fighting for Breath report was successfully launched at a report in the House of Lords? Emily: Yes, we held a launch event on the 15 July and we got quite a few MPs there. We also heard from a speaker with severe asthma who told people about his experiences and it was a very very powerful speech. We heard from one of the health ministers in England, Earl Howe, immediately after that and it was very clear that he heard what our speaker, Jason, had to say. We were very pleased about the event and we hope that positive steps will be taken towards asthma policy in the future.

Vince: Where can people see this report?

Emily: The report is available on our website asthma.org.uk/fightingforbreath and if people  with severe asthma are listening and want to get involved  - we would love to have people as research and policy volunteers and you can find more information on that at asthma.org.uk/rapvol. We're also asking for people to write to their MP and they can contact the Campaigns and Parliamentary Team at Asthma UK if they're interested.