An improved Asthma Nurse service for children and young people in Stoke-on-Trent is set to relaunch in autumn this year. The service sees a trained nurse visit patients, schools and GP surgeries to inform families and practitioners about asthma care. The aim is to educate patients, families and healthcare professionals more, so that children and young people are able to stay out of hospital. Those who have been admitted to hospital because of their asthma and have been discharged will also get more information to help reduce the chance to them needing to be admitted because of their asthma again.

This service was previously run by Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (MPFT). However, it was paused due to the COVID-19 pandemic and has not restarted since. Now, a new national specification has been published, which means that there are certain things that must be included in the service. In addition to this core service, the local NHS wants to hear from potential service users and their families, to see if anything might be missing.

The Integrated Care Board (ICB) for Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent is the new organisation which controls the total NHS spend for the area. It has created a survey which asks for views on the current national specification, and whether local families with children and young people with asthma, think that anything else should be added to make it suitable for local people.

For more information on the national specification, and to have your say, please visit the ICB website here.