Four people per day, or one person every 7 hours, die from asthma. In 2005, asthma caused the deaths of 1318 individuals in the UK and 27 of those deaths were children. Delay in appropriate management can be fatal. Factors leading to poor outcome include doctors failing to assess severity by objective measurement, patients or relatives failing to appreciate severity and underuse of corticosteroids. It is estimated that 75% of hospital admissions and 90% of asthma deaths are preventable. It is essential that GPs know how to manage acute asthma and regard each emergency asthma consultation as acute, severe asthma until proven otherwise.
