Skip to main content

Comment on a draft guideline

Consultation launched for the BTS/NICE/SIGN draft guideline on diagnosis, monitoring and management of chronic asthma

The British Thoracic Society (BTS), Scottish Intercollegiate Guideline Network (SIGN), and National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) have today opened the stakeholder consultation on the draft joint guideline for the diagnosis, monitoring, and management of chronic asthma 

Respond to the Consultation here.

BTS and SIGN have jointly produced a British guideline on the management of asthma since 2003, with the latest edition published as SIGN 158 in 2019. In a new collaboration with NICE, the three organisations have welcomed the opportunity to work closely together to produce a usable and useful new guideline, developed by clinicians and subject matter experts, to support healthcare professionals in the care of people with asthma. It includes recommendations in areas where differences in approach had previously existed, for example, guidance on the most appropriate regimens for inhaled corticosteroids and advice on when to step treatment up or down.

The full scope of the joint Guideline is available here.

We encourage responses from a wide range of stakeholders to ensure the new guidance is both straightforward to implement and ultimately, improves outcomes for people living with chronic asthma.

Please respond to the consultation by Tuesday, 30 July.

 Further information about the new Asthma Pathway

When the final collaborative guideline is published later in 2024, this will be part of a new “asthma pathway”, which will include the new guideline as part of a broader set of guidance on diagnosing and managing asthma throughout an individual’s lifetime. The UK pathway will support healthcare professionals in making accurate diagnoses, promoting good practice, and providing effective treatment to control the condition and prevent acute asthma attacks. It will also signpost to other relevant guidance for easy reference. The new pathway will include guidance on areas that fall outside the scope of the collaborative guideline and has been informed by a short-life working group established in June 2023.  The guidance, and updated patient booklet, will be available as part of the pathway to be published in November 2024.

Planned future updates to this guidance include:

  • a revalidated and re-formatted ‘Management of acute asthma’ (existing section 9)
  • reviewed and refreshed sections on ‘Non-pharmacological management’ (section 6) and ‘Occupational asthma’ (section 13) to reflect new evidence on environmental factors, air purification and breathing. 
  • a new standalone guideline on uncontrolled asthma that includes guidance on pharmacological management (specifically biologics), assessment, phenotyping, high-risk patients, biomarkers and monitoring (replacing the existing sections 7 and 10).