How Best to Care for Children with Allergies

The journal Archives of Disease in Childhood has recently published a supplement containing a series of articles focused on developing care pathways for children with allergies. The articles represent an effort by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) Science and Research Department to develop national care pathways for these children, as requested by the UK Department of Health. The articles each focus on a different condition:

• Anaphylaxis
• Asthma and/or rhinitis
• Drug allergies
• Eczema
• Food allergy
• Latex allergies
• Urticaria, angioedema, or mastocytosis
• Venom allergies

Each article presents a pathway algorithm and a set of competences that are required to deliver high-quality care. They are intended as “a guide for training and development of services to facilitate improvements in delivery as close to the patient's home as possible.” The authors note that the pathways should be implemented by a multidisciplinary team, at a local level, and with an eye to establishing connections between primary, secondary, and tertiary care.

Council of the European Union adopts conclusions on chronic respiratory diseases in children

On December 2, the Council of the European Union adopted a set of conclusions regarding "Prevention, early diagnosis and treatment of chronic respiratory diseases in children." This topic had been identified by the Polish Presidency of the EU as one of its public health priorities. According to the press release, the conclusions urge member states “to give appropriate consideration to the prevention, early diagnosis and treatment of chronic respiratory diseases in children in their health programmes” and “to increase public awareness of these diseases, strengthen smoking prevention and cessation programmes for pregnant women and follow the Council recommendation on smoke-free environment.” In addition, the Council asks the Commission “to support member states in developing and implementing effective policies on the prevention of chronic respiratory diseases in children, improving networking among institutions responsible for the implementation of member states' programmes, and strengthening cooperation of national centres and reinforcing existing international research networks.”