An innovative six-month pilot has launched at the Royal Oldham Hospital (ROH), with the aim of transforming services for children and young people living with asthma and related conditions as well as reduce avoidable harms caused by smoking or second-hand smoke inside the home.
Introduced in February this year, the pilot takes a whole-household approach to asthma intervention, working with ROH Children’s and Paediatric Observation and Assessment Unit to help identify children and young people admitted to hospital with asthma or respiratory illnesses, who smoke or live in a household that smokes.
According to data captured as part of the Asthma friendly schools’ pilot, conducted by NHS England, the UK has one of the highest prevalence, emergency admission and death rates for childhood asthma in Europe. In Greater Manchester, 6,482 children and young people (0-19 years) attended A&E due to asthma and 1,346 were admitted to hospital between January 2022 and January 2023 alone.
As part of the pilot, patients are offered Fractional Exhaled Nitric Oxide (FeNO) testing on the ward to monitor inflammation of the lungs, and offered advice and nicotine replacement therapy as well as support helping them to be smokefree and ultimately become healthier as a result.
Continued support is provided for the patient, with a repeat FeNO test offered in a community-based setting as part of a follow-up asthma consultation. If the child or young person’s asthma is determined to be uncontrolled, they will be referred onto the Asthma Biologics pathway to assess whether they are eligible for biologic therapy medication.
The work sets the blueprint for joined up services designed around the needs of the family by supporting children and young patients, as well as their parents and households to become smokefree. As an in-patient and post-discharge, both children, young patients and their families have access to local smoking cessation services, as well as nicotine replacement therapy and ongoing support through the Smoke Free App. The app offers families access to expert support, as well as tips and advice for tackling milestones on their journey to become smokefree.
This pilot taking place at the Royal Oldham Hospital (ROH) is part of the wider Innovation for Healthcare Inequalities Programme (InHIP) which is a unique collaboration between the Accelerated Access Collaborative (AAC), NHS England’s National Healthcare Inequalities Improvement Programme and the Academic Health Science Network (AHSN) and delivered in partnership with Greater Manchester Integrated Care Partnership.
The programme aims to address local healthcare inequalities experienced by deprived and other under-served populations. Project teams from across the country are working together with their local communities to identify, address and minimise healthcare inequalities through projects to improve access to the latest health technologies and medicines.
These technologies and medicines are focused on five clinical areas of priority that closely align with the national Core20PLUS5 approach to reducing healthcare inequalities, which includes maternity, mental health, respiratory, cancer diagnosis and cardiovascular disease.
Health Innovation Manchester has worked collaboratively with key stakeholders including NHS Greater Manchester (NHS GM), The Royal Oldham Hospital, ABL Health and Your Health Oldham to identify key focus points within the local health and care system, proposing that one of the greatest healthcare inequality challenges in Greater Manchester is paediatric asthma and effects of second-hand smoke on asthma.
Dr Tracey Vell MBE, Medical Director at Health Innovation Manchester, said:
“This is a perfect example of making every contact in the NHS count and whilst we have citizens engaging with the health service, we must tackle the wider determinants of health and prevent future ill health. In Greater Manchester we must start with those identified to be in the most need. Often citizens present only with their children, and we take every opportunity to offer health advice.”
