An audit of new asthma guidance for school staff
Ellmore, K.
Community Practitioner the Journal of the Community Practitioners' and Health Visitors' Association 87(3): 23-25
2014
ISSN/ISBN: 1462-2815 PMID: 24683882 Document Number: 672079
Asthma guidance for schools was created following an audit of all Shropshire and Telford schools in 2006. The guidance was introduced into Shropshire schools in 2009 with the intention of helping to improve the confidence of school staff to manage acute and chronic asthma, thus improving children's attendance and health in school. The guidance was launched by the school nursing team through cluster head meetings with school nurses providing ongoing staff training and school staff support. After a successful launch and initial roll-out of the guidance a further audit was undertaken by the school nursing team in 2012. The audit tool was designed to measure the concordance with policy standards and provide insight into the uptake of the recommendations of the guidance. The tool gathered qualitative information from the parents to assess their level of confidence with the school's ability to manage their child's asthma. The results show the asthma guidance has improved school staff members' knowledge of asthma, and their confidence to manage a child's acute asthma attack.