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The impact of allergies
On NHS Services:
- 8% of GP appointments relate to allergic conditions.
- Managing asthma patients – of which 80% will also have hay fever – costs the NHS a staggering £1.1 billion a year. This includes 60,000 hospital admissions and 200,000 bed days each year. Hay fever and its impact as a trigger to asthma, is not something to be sniffed at.
- In 2014 15% of asthma deaths saw hay fever as a contributing factor.
- Managing allergies alone costs the NHS £900 million a year.
Personal impact:
- Allergic eczema is responsible for nearly 25% of patients losing at least 15 working days a year to their condition.
- People living with food allergies typically have to spend 14% more on their grocery bills than those without food allergies.
- People living with allergic eczema can spend up to an hour a day just managing their eczema.
- 42% of parents caring for a child with food allergy, meet the clinical threshold of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder due to their child’s allergies.
These numbers are not just statistics; they represent the lives of our loved ones, friends, and colleagues. Soon, there will be so many of our loved ones, friends and colleagues affected by allergy, that the impact of allergy will even be too big to ignore for those who aren’t directly living with allergic disease.
