Young people are at higher risk of having an asthma attack than any other age group living with the condition, the charity Asthma UK is warning

23 January 2019
Young people are at higher risk of having an asthma attack than any other age group living with the condition, the charity Asthma UK is warning

1.1 million children in the UK have Asthma. During 2015-2016, 21 children died from an asthma attack. It was reported that 19 of these deaths could have been prevented. The new survey from Asthma UK highlights “751 replies from people aged 18-29, two-thirds (67%) of young adults said they were not getting basic asthma care, higher than any other age group.

Asthma UK says that there are a number of reasons why young adults may be getting worse asthma care, including a complacency around the seriousness of asthma or an inability to get a GP appointment:

More than a quarter (28%) of the young people in the survey said they did not attend their asthma review;
More than one in 10 (12%) said that their GP surgery was too busy, so they were unable to book a review; and
More than half (57%) said they did not receive a reminder that their review was due.


Asthma⁺meᵀᴹ is a new solution developed by UK company Aseptika in partnership with one of the UK’s leading paediatric care centres for children with moderate-to-severe asthma. The Asthma⁺me App and the smart inhaler tracker – PUFFClickerᵀᴹ are both CE marked as Class I medical devices and have undergone feasibility trials for use by the NHS. The Asthma solution by Activ8rlives combines adherence tracking, education, care plan, remote monitoring, symptom tracking, reminders for reviews and has the capability of sending the users data to their GP or clinician.

We announced a couple of days ago that we had been successful in obtaining further funding under the “SME support to evaluate innovative medical technologies (Round 2)” theme from Innovate UK, which will be invaluable in supporting us to generate the clinical and health economics evidence required for the commissioners of children’s services to make Asthma⁺me available to children on the NHS. The PUFFClicker and Asthma⁺me App are available for purchase through our website and App Stores.