Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to support people with damaged lungs as a result of air pollution.

The Department is working with organisations such as Health Education England and the Royal Colleges to ensure that healthcare professionals are equipped to treat those vulnerable to the health impacts of air pollution.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s guidance ‘Air pollution: outdoor air quality and health’, also provides advice for people with chronic respiratory or cardiovascular conditions and the impacts of air pollution. The guidance is available at the following link:

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/qs181

NHS England and NHS Improvement are taking a whole system approach to asthma management which includes addressing environmental triggers. The children and young people's transformation programme has asked local systems to prioritise local improvements in asthma care. This will include supporting clinicians to discuss the short and long-term adverse effects of air pollution on children with asthma and any mitigation strategies.