An academic, pharmaceutical and practice collaboration to implement asthma guidelines

To investigate whether a patient review service changes the management of asthma in accordance with BTS/SIGN Guidelines.

An observational study of routine review consultations for patients with asthma registered at 862 practices throughout the United Kingdom. Practices recorded reviews on a computer template and returned the information to an academic unit for analysis.

41,493 patients had data returned with 14,790 (36%) patients reporting symptoms at rest or on a daily basis and 15,840 (38%) patients over-using their short-acting beta2-agonist. 4,556 (74%) of patients with symptoms who had a subsequent consultation reported a reduction in their symptoms, whilst 3,932 (63%) reported a reduction in short-acting beta2-agonist use. Night-time, daytime, and activity symptom scores, and short-acting beta2-agonist use, were significantly reduced for patients reviewed more than once.

There are a large proportion of patients suffering symptoms at rest or on a daily basis. There was a significant reduction in symptom levels and use of reliever medication for patients who were reviewed. A review service implementing the BTS/SIGN guidelines for asthma management would seem to improve patient outcomes.