Asthma friendly schools

Background

Asthma is the most common long-term medical condition in children in the UK, with around 1 in 11 children and young people living with asthma. The UK has one of the highest prevalence, emergency admission and death rates for childhood asthma in Europe. Outcomes are worse for children and young people living in the most deprived areas. NHS England and NHS Improvement’s ambition is to reduce avoidable harm to children and young people from asthma and improve their quality of life. NHS England » National bundle of care for children and young people with asthma

Schools and education partners across West Yorkshire are a significant part of achieving this ambition and form part of NHSE/I ‘National bundle of care for children and young people with asthma’. This work across West Yorkshire is delivered through the West Yorkshire Children Young People and Families Asthma Group.

Aims

The West Yorkshire Asthma Friendly Schools Initiative aims to improve the care of pupils with asthma by raising awareness through information, training and support for school staff as well as pupils, parents and carers. The initiative builds on the work already undertaken across West Yorkshire by 0-19 Services and Paediatric Respiratory teams over many years. In addition to existing projects already currently taking place, Primary Care representatives have been working with several schools across West Yorkshire providing information and up to date training to better support children and young people with asthma in educational settings.

The benefits of becoming an Asthma Friendly School are:

• Improved asthma awareness and management in schools
• Improved support to pupils with asthma encouraging an inclusive environment
• Additional support with the health, safety and wellbeing of pupils
• Ensures the school are implementing current and best practice asthma management strategies
• Enables the school to promote its self-evaluated status to ensure that the community is aware of the school's commitment to asthma friendly strategies

‘How do we become an Asthma Friendly School?’

To achieve the key objectives listed below and become an Asthma Friendly School in West Yorkshire you will need to start by doing two things:

1. Contact your local place team who are rolling out Asthma Friendly Schools (contacts below) to inform them you would like to become asthma friendly

2. Start to work through the key objectives using the recommendations in the supporting documents such as completing necessary training

Once your school has achieved the outlined objectives your local place team will present your school with our West Yorkshire Asthma Friendly Schools Certificate

Local place contacts for Asthma Friendly Schools

Contact your local place team who can talk to you about gaining the Asthma Friendly Schools Status and hear about how Asthma Friendly Schools is currently being rolled out in your area of West Yorkshire:

• Wakefield: 0-19 Single Point of Contact on 0300 373 0944/ hdft.wakefield0-19admin@nhs.net
• Calderdale: healthyfutures@calderdale.gov.uk
• Kirklees: alison.cotterill@kirklees.gov.uk   
• Craven: Emma.Lonsdale@northyorks.gov.uk
• Bradford: please contact KatherineA.Hickman@bradford.nhs.uk in the first instance
• Leeds: schoolwellbeing@leeds.gov.uk

To achieve Asthma Friendly School status your school will need to meet the following key objectives:

1. All staff in school to be trained in asthma awareness e-learning CYP asthma Tier 1 training 
2. Each school to have an asthma policy
3. Each school to have an asthma register
4. Parents or carers to be encouraged to share their child’s management plan
5. A consistent approach to where and how inhalers are stored in school
6. A notification system of when inhalers are due to expire
7. Each school to have a spare emergency inhaler and spacer
8. A process in place when to escalate cases to a health professional

Supporting documents to help you achieve the key objectives:

• West Yorkshire Asthma Friendly Schools (explainer) (pdf)
• Asthma Schools Letter (pdf)
• Asthma and anaphylaxis awareness training (e-learning modules) (pdf)
• A draft asthma policy (pdf)
• An example of ‘my asthma plan’ from Asthma UK (pdf)
• A school action plan (generic) (pdf)
• An asthma consent form – emergency use of salbutamol (pdf)
• An asthma consent form – emergency use of salbutamol (download Word document)
• Symptoms of an asthma attack

Let’s Talk About Asthma

It is important to start the conversation about asthma care in your school setting. Find out more by watching this short video and start to talk about asthma at your school. Dr Katherine Hickman, a GP in Bradford and Respiratory Lead for the Partnership takes us through the importance of the initiative and the supporting documents to get you started.

We look forward to your school joining many others and becoming Asthma Friendly.

We are also keen to collect case studies of schools who have become Asthma Friendly and what impact this may have had on pupils, parents and carers, staff members or the school community. Please contact us at wyicb-wak.wyhealthiertogether@nhs.net for information or further guidance.