‘Alarming’ rise in pneumonia admissions highlights lack of preventive care
Better preventive care is needed for people with lung conditions in general practice, a charity has warned after figures showing emergency admission for pneumonia have surged by 25% in the past two years.
Between April 2024 and March 2025 there were 579,475 cases of pneumonia requiring emergency hospitalisation. This compared to 461,995 cases between April 2022 and March 2023, analysis by Asthma and Lung UK found.
The charity said many cases of pneumonia are avoidable and could be prevented if there was better provision of basic care for people with existing lung conditions.
Their analysis of NHS England data also showed that people experiencing greater deprivation were 36% more likely to be admitted to hospital with pneumonia.
These are patients more likely to live in damp, mouldy and poorly ventilated housing or areas of high air pollution, they added.
To prevent further increase there needs to be more focus on ‘better basic care provision for people with lung conditions in community settings, like GP practices’, the charity said.
A recent survey done by Asthma and Lung UK found 32% of respondents with asthma had received all the fundamental elements of basic care to help them manage their condition. For people with COPD that fell to 8.8%.
The figures come as NHS England published commissioning guidance for community care of people with COPD.
Services would need to adapt to take into account the NICE approval of dupilumab and other biologic therapies expected to be made available in the future, it recommended.
Under the NHS neighbourhood health model, teams should take a more proactive approach to identify and prioritise high risk patients with COPD, particularly in underserved communities, the guidance said.
Pulse reported in December that GPs in most areas of England received no extra funding to cope with winter pressures.
Dr Andy Whittamore, a GP and clinical lead at Asthma and Lung UK, said: ‘These alarming figures are the result of respiratory care being neglected and deprioritised for too long.
‘Catching pneumonia is often seen as inevitable, but we forget that most people who are hospitalised with the condition have pre-existing conditions such as COPD.
‘Everyone with a lung condition should be getting the care they deserve to reduce their chance of catching pneumonia.’
He added: ‘I’ve seen first-hand with my patients the dramatic effect good basic care has on reducing hospital admissions.’
But too often ‘we’re not getting the basics right’ and that is leading to increasing pressure on A&E and hospitals, he added.
Sarah Sleet, chief executive at Asthma and Lung UK, said: ‘These figures are a stark reminder of the toll that rising pneumonia cases is not only taking on the NHS, but on people with lung conditions who are being let down by a system that is failing them.
‘The sad truth is that in many instances these cases are preventable if people got the basic care they need in the community.’
She called on the Government to put in place a national strategy for lung health.
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READERS' COMMENTS [10]
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Not necessarily. CAP has been treated in primary care successfully for years. This is just as likely to be a change in patient behaviour and preference for consulting in A+E as it is prevention in primary care. It suits the pressure groups and hospitals to say otherwise. Their case is not made. It may be a GP access issue, but that is resource and not strictly prevention related. Most GPs would argue that their threshold for admitting patients is higher than that of resident Drs and especially paramedics or when patients take themselves to A+E. If you consistently prioritise a hyperacute focussed system in which admission is the default and the path of least resistance, that’s what you get. There are increasing numbers of underemployed GPs out there.
“GP to kindly remove mould from patient’s home”.
Are Asthma and Lung UK writing to councils and housing associations about patients living in damp, mouldy and poorly ventilated housing or areas of high air pollution?
Have they forgotten about the recent pandemic involving a novel immunomodulatory virus?
What about poor oral hygiene? Deprived areas have poor access to dental care.
There are many more factors likely contributing far more to increase in pneumonia admissions and deaths than ‘GPs are not giving basic care to patients with lung condiitions’ : let’s see, a chaotic and messed up winter vaccination season in which so many people who should have had flu/oneumonia jabs were declined more than once, that they gave up trying; exclusion of carers and contacts of the elderly frrom flu jab criteria; exclusion of health care staff from flu-jab programme; immune damage done by repeated exposure deliberately to Covid – encourage dbyt he government; drop in morals and hygeine standards generally causeed by the dreadful examples of dishonesty and inconsiderateness by MPs and authority figures and celebrities; cost-of-living crisis; pollution by private utility companies; denial of basic amenities and clean water by rofiteering private utility companies; deliberate spreading of infection by certain employers : DVLA, train operators, airlines, etc
Maybe 7 days of antibiotics are needed after all?
Back in the day, respiratory clinics used to follow up people with severe lung disease. Now GPs are often expected to do this without the funding moving from secondary care.
Or possibly the relentless pressure to prescribe less antibiotics in the community ….
Totally agree Michael. GPs are penalised on targets if they prescribe highly effective and useful antibiotics like coamoxiclav. This should ONLY be a clinical decision about which is the best antibiotic to use. GPs prescribe fewer and shorter courses of antibiotics and you get higher rates of sepsis, pneumonia and death? Discuss…
The GP system in the U.K. is a systems where GPs can get penalties for curing a patient..
DR Whitty recently advised we should consider a lower threshold to prescribe anti biotics to the elderly and I would imagine this applies to multiple co-morbidity patients. IN my experience we over prescribe to children who are far less likely to have a bacterial infection (most GPs-and paeds form my experience-don’t follow centor criteria or NICE guidelines for otitis media despite the evidence being that following these guidelines and prescribing by them does not increase the rate of complications). I have had a low threshold to prescribe antibiotics in the elderly for a long time. And if someone has a lobar pneumonia I often prescribe clarithromycin and amoxicillin as they augment each other and a lobar pneumonia is more dangerous. GPs are far more likely to manage pneumonia in the community and catching it early prevent hospital admissions. I strongly agree with James the issue will be access to GPs and seeing patients early enough. Patients can’t access us as we are too busy answering online consults or seeing the worried well as directed by that twat of a health minister Streeting.