New resources aim to cut children's emergency hospital visits for asthma
Anna Pujol-Mazzini
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
The British Lung Foundation has stressed the importance of age-appropriate information to cut the rising rates of emergency hospital admissions for childhood asthma.
New resources are being made available to educate young children with asthma.
According to Asthma UK, emergency admissions in asthmatic children rose by 15 per cent from 2012 to 2013, and three people die every day due to asthma in the UK.
The resources include Monkey Has an Asthma Attack, a storybook and activity guide breaking down the illness to children and their parents. NHS Burton Hospitals and the Whittington Hospital in London already provide the new resources and Brighton Hospital is due to in the near future.
Dr Penny Woods, chief executive of the British Lung Foundation, said, ‘The increasing rates of hospital admissions among asthmatic children are evidence that childhood asthma is not currently being managed as well as it should be in this country.
‘Helping a child understand how to manage their lung condition can help reduce their risk of hospital admission now, as well as encouraging better management of their condition beyond their childhood years.’
Monkey Wellbeing was developed by former early years teacher Helen Sadler with specialist asthma doctors and nurses.
Ms Sadler found the resources available at the hospital insufficient when her daughter went through major lung surgery at the age of 18 months.
At the time, she wrote the storybook Monkey Goes to Hospital to help her go through the process, and thought her daughter was so relaxed it helped speed up her recovery.
Monkey Wellbeing has since expanded and the resources are now being used in NHS hospitals across the UK. The Monkey’s Guide to Healthy Living and NHS Services Primary Schools resource pack was distributed to every primary school in the UK.
Donna Brocklesby, 34, whose son Harry has asthma, said, ‘My son Harry would become very upset when he became wheezy and the more he screamed the harder it became for him to breathe.
‘We would often end up in A&E with him extremely traumatised.
‘Since using the Monkey resources, there’s been such a difference to how Harry copes when he becomes wheezy. Now he can point to the scale of different Monkey faces on his asthma plan to show me exactly how unwell he’s feeling.’
