A report shows there is a critical shortage of allergy specialists in Britain.
Many people suffer so badly from hayfever that they request a referral to a consultant to discuss the condition.
But a new report just out, called ‘Allergy Services: Still not meeting the unmet need’ shows that we in Britian are desperately under provided for.
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Summary
by: Yuet Wan
This report from a joint working party of the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) and Royal College of Pathologists (RCPath), supported by the British Society for Allergy and Clinical Immunology (BSACI) provides an update on changes to allergy service provision following the 2007 report of the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee’s inquiry into allergy.
The report stresses that services like allergy, which have been chronically under-resourced and under-supplied in the UK compared with the rest of Europe, are especially vulnerable and must be protected in this current economic climate. It recommends that further actions are needed from the Department of Health, PCTs, local health boards, strategic health authority commissioners, providers of allergy services, and patients, in order to provide cost-effective improvements in allergy care, despite the current funding crisis. It emphasises the need for better allergy services and more allergy specialists (which has not yet been addressed), but also the importance of ensuring that all existing services are identified and supported in the interim, by enhanced interaction with allergy specialists.
