First UK joint asthma guidance: what does it mean for practice?

On the 27th of November 2024, the British Thoracic Society (BTS), National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) released joint guidance on ‘Asthma: diagnosis, monitoring and chronic asthma management’. The guidance is the first collaboration of its kind between the organisations.   The guideline makes a number of recommendations, including a strong recommendation to stop prescribing Short-acting beta-2 agonist (SABA) inhalers without inhaled corticosteroids. While there has been a move towards this treatment regimen in recent years, this is the first recommendation of its kind in national guidance. In this episode of The PJ Pod, Caitlin Killen, clinical editor, talks to Toby Capstick, Consultant pharmacist in respiratory medicine at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, to learn more about the guidance and its implications for practice. Many thanks to Toby for his expertise. This episode was produced by Geoff Marsh.