Schools join asthma fight

Schools will soon be able to legally hold spare emergency inhalers to keep children safe from potentially fatal asthma attacks.

A change in the law has followed four years of campaigning by Asthma UK.

One in 11 children suffers from asthma and almomst two-thirds of them are estimated to have had an attack at school. Almost nine in 10 sufferers have at some time forgotten to take their inhaler to school - and every year around 20 school-age children die from an attack before it can be treated in hospital.

Previous legislation meant it was illegal for schools to have a spare emergency inhaler. Following a long-fought campaign by Asthma UK, schools will be able to keep spare inhalers from 1 October.

The change doesn’t make it mandatory to hold an inhaler at school.