In an ideal world, asthma review appointments will be between 20 to 30 minutes in duration. But we are not living in an ideal world. Staff shortages due to ill health, burnout, and workforce issues are compounding an already pressured system, and in many practices, the maths doesn’t stack up; there are simply not enough hours in the year to see everybody in the recommended time. If practices are struggling to recruit staff to do the reviews, the time allocation for asthma reviews may be reduced to 10 minutes.

Whatever the situation in your practice, there are some key steps you can take to ensure that if you do only have 10 minutes to see your patient with asthma, whether at an annual review, for a new diagnosis, a flare-up, or for a post-attack review, the basics are covered.