Health insurance news - New online test to assess asthma risk launched

A new online test to assess the risk of health insurance customers suffering asthma attacks has been launched.

The website will help people that already suffer from the disease to gauge to what extent they are at risk of a serious attack, as well as advising people what they can do to minimise the risk.

Alongside this, there will be a national review of all asthma deaths over the next year, with the ultimate aim to reduce the number of deaths through asthma attacks. Figures suggest up to three deaths a year are down to asthma attacks in the UK.

The online test is called Triple A: Avoid Asthma Attacks and asks simple questions about factors which are linked to increasing the risk of an attack that could lead to hospital admission.

Those medical insurance subscribers taking the test will fall into one of three categories colour-coded like traffic lights with red meaning the people most at risk.

Each category is linked to advice on how to control the symptoms and also how to react if someone does have an attack around them.

Director of research and policy at Asthma UK Dr Samantha Walker told BBC News that attacks put someone in hospital every seven minutes and kill over 1,100 people each year.

"The test is designed to make people sit up, take notice and make changes to the way they manage their asthma if they are shown to be at an increased risk of an asthma attack," she continued.

Clinical lead of the National Review of Asthma Deaths Dr Mark L Levy said it is important for everyone to learn from each death and this new review will offer clinicians that opportunity.

Last month it was suggested by Dutch researchers that babies who grow rapidly in the first three months of life could be more likely to develop asthma.