Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what progress has been made on the commitment made in the NHS Long Term Plan to “improve patient pathways to ensure timely assessment and treatment that reduces the risk of death and disability” for severe asthma attacks.

The NHS Long Term Plan commitment to reduce death and disability from severe asthma attacks by ensuring timely assessment and treatment has been taken forward within the scope of the Clinical Review of Standards. This was requested by the Prime Minister in June 2018 and is led by Professor Stephen Powis, Medical Director of NHS England.

The review seeks to promote safety and outcomes; drive improvements in patients experience; are clinically meaningful, accurate and practically achievable; ensure the sickest and most urgent patients are given priority; ensure patients get the right service in the right place; are simple and easy to understand for patients and the public; and not worsen inequalities.

An interim report was published in March 2019 and testing at 14 different hospitals began in May 2019. This included a commitment to collect data to examine the feasibility of measuring how fast critically ill or injured patients arriving at accident and emergency receive a package of tests and care developed with clinical experts