Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Answer of 22 June 2020 to Question 58769, what assessment he has made of the reduction in severe asthma patients beginning biologic therapies from January to March 2020; and what steps he is taking to increase uptake of those therapies to pre-covid-19 levels.

NHS England and NHS Improvement’s Chief Executive wrote to the National Health Service in July 2020 setting clear expectations about the need to accelerate the return to near-normal levels of non-COVID-19 health services, with target dates for both outpatient and inpatient services. Prior to this, all regions were tasked with restoring services which included developing COVID-19 safe pathways for all patients. Regions have access to local data and national data to assist in this process. Patients with severe asthma disease have been considered within these plans.

Further to this, NHS England’s specialised services commissioners identified restoration of respiratory services as a priority within its portfolio of responsibilities and considered mitigations in the event of a further waves of the pandemic. NHS England and The Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) programme have produced guidance to support commissioners and hospitals in restoring specialist respiratory services following the first wave of the pandemic. The development of this guidance was led by specialists, and involved NHS England’s clinical reference group, and the GIRFT clinical lead.

Further work is being undertaken to share best practice on providing care to people with severe asthma to ensure ongoing provision of high-quality care and to accelerate the initiation of biologics where required. A severe asthma toolkit has been developed and will be circulated to teams shortly.