Making the switch: how do people with severe asthma feel about injecting their biologics at home?
Lottie from our policy team has been exploring how people with severe asthma feel about injecting their biologic treatment at home. In this blog, she shares her findings on how people feel about the change and whether they want to keep this new method of treatment in the future.
If you have severe eosinophilic asthma or severe persistent allergic asthma you may be offered a new type of treatment alongside your usual asthma medicines. These are called biologics or MAbs and they work by helping to prevent lung inflammation. It’s given as an injection, usually every month.
Before the pandemic most people on biologics had to travel to a specialist asthma clinic to get their injections. However, since the pandemic began, more and more people with severe asthma have been self-administering their medicines at home. We've heard from lots of people with severe asthma, with different experiences of treating themselves at home (giving the injections themselves).
How does it work?
The process will vary depending on your severe asthma clinic. Generally, if you are starting on biologics at home a nurse will visit you and show you how to inject your biologic treatment. The nurse may be there for the first two injections and when you’re able to correctly administer the drugs yourself, you can then start doing them on your own.
What do people think?
We asked people already injecting themselves at home how they felt about the change. 82% of people told us that injecting themselves at home was more convenient than before, as many people had to travel long distances to visit their nearest asthma clinic. One person said they used to travel for two hours by train for what was generally a ten-minute appointment. They said: “being a disabled person, the journey tires me out, so I'm happy to inject myself at home.” Others told us in the past they had to take the entire day off work to get to their appointment. Once at the hospital they would often have to deal with parking issues and long wait times making the whole experience very stressful.
However, one in four worry their condition won’t be well monitored if they’re not seeing their consultant face-to-face. One person told us “I do worry about being left abandoned and being forgotten with nobody checking if the injections still suit me.” One in six told us they would prefer to go back to clinic administration entirely.
Looking forward
So, what can we conclude from these findings? There is certainly a real opportunity in the long term for home administration to free up clinician time and speed up referrals into severe asthma centres. The survey results show that although making the switch to home administration is more convenient for some people with asthma, it needs to be a decision between the clinician and patient. Home administration doesn’t suit everyone, with some people needing extra support and reassurance. There also needs to be better ways of remote monitoring and open communication that substitute the face-to-face appointments people on biologics are now missing.
We have shared these findings with the NHS and as a result, some clinics have now added in extra support for people administering biologics at home, including phone calls and monthly video check-ups. It’s important we keep learning from the experiences of patients during the pandemic so we know which new ways of delivering care we want to continue going forward.
Want to learn more about the biologic therapies that are changing how severe asthma is treated? Visit our website to find out more.
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