A quarter feel hopeless about their asthma
24 June 2008

Asthma UK Cymru has marked its third anniversary by launching a report entitled ‘A Quarter of a Million Voices...and Counting’, which outlines the challenges facing people with asthma in Wales today and highlights the need for asthma health services in Wales to be vastly improved.

Rates of asthma in Wales are among the highest in the world, with 1 in 12 adults and 1 in 10 children living with the condition. The country also has some of the highest hospital admissions for asthma in the world, with more than 4,400 admissions in 2006/7.

An alarming 75% of people with asthma in Wales today do not have a personal asthma action plan, yet many of these people wish to have one and people with such a plan are four times less likely to require a hospital admission for their asthma.

The report also found people with asthma living in deprived areas of Wales are most likely to feel that their asthma is out of control, to say that the condition has limited their lives and to have lower expectations of how their asthma treatment can help their condition.

Read the report in English (1416 kb)

Read the report in Welsh (2111 kb)

Despite the advances in asthma medicine and treatment over recent years, 24% of people with asthma feel there is nothing they can do to limit their asthma symptoms and one in seven feel the condition has a negative impact on how other people see them.

Janet Pardue-Wood, National Director of Asthma UK Cymru said: ‘While free prescriptions and smoke-free legislation have helped to ease the burden on the lives of people with asthma in Wales, our report clearly shows there is much more work to be done.

‘When asthma is not controlled effectively, the effects can be devastating and in some cases fatal, which is why improving healthcare and reducing the hospital admissions of the 260,000 people with asthma in Wales is a key aim for Asthma UK Cymru.’

Abigail Foster, who has asthma, said: ‘I’m proud to have been part of Asthma UK Cymru’s campaign for free prescriptions, which has made such a difference to people with asthma in Wales.

'Although my asthma is quite well controlled, I still need six medicines at the moment to do this. If I still had to pay for all these medicines it would soon add up. And if someone like me, who earns an OK wage and makes sure they’ve got their asthma under control, thinks twice about the cost of their medicine, what about someone struggling financially?’