This guideline covers diagnosing, monitoring and managing asthma in adults, young people and children. It aims to improve the accuracy of diagnosis, help people to control their asthma and reduce the risk of asthma attacks. It does not cover managing severe asthma or acute asthma attacks. The investment and training required to implement the guideline will take time. In the meantime, primary care services should implement what they can of the recommendations, using currently available approaches to diagnosis until the infrastructure for objective testing is in place.

Recommendations

This guideline includes recommendations on:

• Initial clinical assessment
• Diagnosing asthma in young children
• Objective tests for diagnosing asthma (including diagnostic algorithms) 
• Pharmacological treatment
• Adherence, self-management and decreasing treatment
• Monitoring asthma control

Who is it for?

• GPs and practice nurses
• Healthcare professionals in secondary care and tertiary asthma services
• Commissioners and providers
• People with suspected or diagnosed asthma, their families and carers

Implementation statement

We recognise that implementing the new approach to diagnosis in this guideline will need a big change in practice. See putting this guideline into practice.

Guideline development process

How we develop NICE guidelines

Next review: November 2019