Saving Your Breath: How better lung health benefits all of us in Northern Ireland

Lung disease, including COPD, asthma, and pneumonia, is the third leading cause of death in Northern Ireland, and places a huge burden on individuals, the health service, and the UK economy. Northern Ireland has one of the worst death rates from lung disease in Europe. Lung conditions, and their burden on the health service, hit the headlines each year as winter pressures mount. But year after year not nearly enough is done to prevent these pressures building up in the first place.

The good news is that we know what works. A significant amount of this burden could be avoided with better prevention and a more effective healthcare response. Asthma + Lung UK commissioned PwC to provide an updated analysis to quantify both the impact of lung conditions, and the positive impact of specific interventions to improve the diagnosis and care for those with asthma and COPD.

This analysis shows that asthma and COPD, the two most prevalent lung conditions:

• cost Health & Social Care in Northern Ireland £153 million in direct costs each year, representing 2.1% of total health expenditure
• cause wider reductions in productivity due to illness and premature death totalling £247 million a year
• have an overall impact of £400 million on the Northern Irish economy

If the three key measures outlined in our blueprint for change were implemented, they could:

• save the health service £10 million a year
• produce a reduction in hospital bed days of just under 8,000 a year, 2,669 over the winter period
• produce wider economic benefits of £12 million a year

In our report we have made a series of recommendations which we hope Ministers will take forward to improve lives for people living with lung conditions and save Northern Ireland money.