Access to Salbutamol Inhalers

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 29th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Thank you, Mr Hosie, for giving me the opportunity to speak in the debate. I am very pleased to see the Minister in her place, and I am convinced that I will get a decent response from her on the issues I raise. I think we are all convinced of that, and I look forward to her contribution. I thank the hon. Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) for setting the scene so well, as he always does, on a matter that is of some interest to me.

I am the Democratic Unionist party’s health spokes- person at Westminster, so I want to be involved in these issues. I am also the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on respiratory health, so this is a topic in which I have a particular interest. As the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) said earlier, we will have a debate on asthma next week, and it could well be that the Minister will respond to that debate as well—I suspect that she will.

Why am I interested in this issue? As I said, I am my party’s health spokesperson, but also my second son Ian—he is a young man of 30 now, so this is a long time ago—was born with a combination of asthma and psoriasis. The doctor informed us at an early stage that the psoriasis and skin problems that he had would diminish as the years went by, but that his asthma could increase. In a way, that is probably what has happened. He takes an inhaler with him every day and manages to control his asthma. It is a very personal matter for our family, as it is for many others. When I am in my office, which is very busy—everybody’s office is busy—I get lots of referrals on this issue.

As hon. Members will be aware, I have been intimately involved in the drive to have asthma inhalers available in school so that a qualified person can administer salbutamol and other relief inhalers for a child who has a medically documented need. It is essential that if a child forgets their inhaler, the school nurse or equivalent has the ability to provide an inhaler and supervise its use. I am pleased that this endeavour was successful back home in Northern Ireland.

Prescriptions are prepared for a specific person only. If someone other than the person named on the prescription were to buy or use the drugs, that would be illegal. The provision within schools for emergency inhaler use has various safeguards, and it is important to have them in place. A clinically trained and responsible person—usually the school nurse or someone equivalent—acts as a guarantor of the appropriate use. The inhalers are held for specifically named children, people cannot use someone else’s inhaler and the school nurse is legally permitted to prescribe the inhaler. With covid-19, those safeguards are even more important and the restrictions are more stringent now than perhaps they were a year ago or further back.

Therefore, in theory, I understand and agree with the impetus behind this petition. However, I believe it is right and proper that we highlight the difficulties that there clearly are. Safeguards need to be in place and there needs to be care in the widening of allowing prescription-based relief inhalers to be available to anyone, on any occasion.

With asthma, undoubtedly prevention is better than cure. That is always the case with health issues, alongside early diagnosis. In June 2020, The Pharmaceutical Journal reported a substantial increase of 60% in inhaler prescriptions in 2020 from the year prior to covid. I think we are all convinced that those increases are down to the pandemic, the problems people have had and the dangers that they perceive there to be.

NHS data showed a similar large increase in inhaler prescribing across the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In March 2020, 2.77 million prescriptions were made for salbutamol inhalers, a rise of 63% from the previous February. I know that this led to supply issues. Can the Minister reassure us that supply issues for inhalers have been addressed? We all have constituents who use their inhalers monthly, and in Northern Ireland there were some who were worried that they could not get their inhaler. I hate to bring it up, Mr Hosie, but the Northern Ireland protocol is to blame for many things, including access to salbutamol inhalers. Can the Minister give us some indication that that will not be a problem in the future?

People whose asthma had been well controlled for years and who did not use their inhalers were getting one, as they said, “just in case”. We all know that prescriptions are not handed out just in case, but given only when the case is fully justified. I am concerned if prescription medication is to be given out not as needed by a dedicated healthcare professional but at random and different buildings; such an extension, as proposed in this petition, would have to be carefully considered. It is about making it safe, getting it right, and doing it the right way. We want to make sure that that happens.

We would need more information to ensure that there was appropriate regulation, as there is with the current prescription service through which the GP prescribes, and then the pharmacist checks the dosage and informs people about how and when to take the medication. I believe this is imperative for medicinal safety. It is a safeguard for the young children who get the medication, and gives their parents peace of mind.

To conclude, while the drive behind this petition is laudable, there is much work to be done to make it safe. In her response, can the Minister reference the concerns I have raised, as we seek to get the delicate balance of the availability of salbutamol inhalers exactly right? That will save lives in the process and make sure that everyone is safe.