Examination of Witnesses (Questions 777-779)
Dr Glenis Scadding, Dr Clare Mills, Ms Donna Covey
and Ms Lindsey McManus
15 MARCH 2007
Q777Chairman: Thank you for coming today to
give evidence. I have met some of you before. I am Baroness Finlay
and I chair this Committee. We have a list of our declared interests
which is published so we will not be running through all of those
today. Could I ask you to introduce yourselves?
Dr Scadding: I am Dr Glenis Scadding. I am an
NHS consultant allergist working at the Royal National Throat,
Nose and Ear Hospital in London.
Dr Mills: I am Dr Clare Mills. I am a biochemist
and I work at the Institute of Food Research in Norwich which
is a not for profit research institute funded by the BBSRC.
Ms Covey: I am Donna Covey. I am the chief executive
of Asthma UK.
Ms McManus: I am Lindsey McManus. I am the deputy
information manager at the charity, Allergy UK.
Q778 Chairman: Can I ask what are
the most common questions from members of the public who phone
Asthma UK and Allergy UK helplines?
Ms McManus: Right across the board from: Where
is my nearest allergy clinic? Where do I get allergy testing carried
out? What type of test might I expect when I go to the hospital?
Could I have an allergy? They might phone up with symptoms and
we can only point them in the right direction.[17]
We are not medically qualified, but we can give practical advice
on allergy management. They may have been diagnosed already and
want help on how to avoid certain allergens and we offer very
practical advice such as bedding and cleaning. We can also give
advice on different types of tests and alternative testing, should
they ask us.
Q779Chairman: Do you provide advice on those
types of tests?
Ms McManus: We cannot provide advice on tests
that we do not believe have undergone any clinical trials. We
would not be happy to do that. We do tend to direct them straight
to their GP if they have not been there.
Ms Covey: At Asthma UK we have a nurse run advice
line which takes telephone calls and also answers e-mails and
letters. They take anything between 7,000 and 10,000 queries a
year and we monitor those. About 30 per cent of calls to our advice
line are from people experiencing symptoms, either a new symptom
of their asthma or a worsening symptom. Just over 20 per cent
are about medication. People find it difficult to get good advice
about asthma medication and a lot of those queries are about side
effects. About 5 per cent of our callers are newly diagnosed and
it is the, "Hello, I have asthma; what does that mean?"
call. About 3 per cent are on the indoor environment. About 3
per cent are about complementary therapies and about 3 per cent
are product queries. The rest are a mish-mash of various things.
That is basically how our calls to the Adviceline pan out.
17 If callers are enquiring after an NHS clinic we
would give details of the British Society of Allergy and Clinical
Immunology BSACI. Back
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