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Barry Sheerman MP has pledged to support Asthma UK’s campaign on inhalers for emergencies in schools in Huddersfield and across the rest of the UK.

He attended a meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Asthma (APPG), a group of MPs and Peers who have a special interest in asthma issues. He has pledged to support Asthma UK’s campaign and raise the profile of this issue in Parliament. He is pictured with Caitlin Pilcher, 18 from Ashford, who spoke to the MPs who attended the meeting about what it is like to have asthma.

Asthma UK is campaigning for schools in Huddersfield and across the UK to become more asthma friendly, after tragic cases such as the death of Stockport schoolboy Samuel Linton in 2007, who died in hospital following a prolonged asthma attack at school. The school was found to have significantly contributed to his death. Cases like this clearly show that failure to treat an asthma attack can put children at risk of dying.

Under current legislation, bronchodilators (blue ‘reliever’ inhalers) are prescription-only medicines, which means that the law prevents schools from having a spare inhaler kit available for emergencies, something the charity is keen to change.

Dr Samantha Walker, Executive Director of Research and Policy at Asthma UK says:

‘We know that support for children with asthma at school varies across the country and some school staff are not trained to deal with an emergency, which is extremely worrying. If a child’s inhaler is lost, broken or empty when they need it, the law prevents schools having an inhaler which the child can use in an emergency. These rules must be changed and staff supported to keep children with asthma safe at school.’

Asthma is the most common long-term condition in children affecting an average of two children in every classroom (over 1.1 million children in the UK). Every day, there are 80 emergency hospital admissions of children under 15 in the UK, yet we believe around 75% of these admissions could have been avoided with better asthma management both at  home and at school. To find out more about the campaign for school inhalers for emergencies call 0800 121 62 55.