Iain Small reports on new asthma guidelines which provide the most upto-date review of evidence in asthma care and make recommendations that will alter prescribing and treatments patterns

For some time now, there has been a feeling that primary care professionals have nailed asthma. The seemingly inexorable rise in prevalence during the 1990s is tailing off, the death rate is starting to fall, and practices have organised their care by setting up asthma clinics, most of which are nurse led. There are, however, more than 5.1 million people in the UK with asthma, almost four million primary healthcare consultations and 74,000 asthma-related annual hospital admissions and, despite a recent downturn, there are 1,500 asthma deaths each year (National Asthma Campaign 2001).