Asthma UK was initially founded in 1927, under the name of the Asthma Research Council.[4] The first donation was used to pay for special asthma clinics at Guy's Hospital and Great Ormond Street Hospital. In 1989, the Council became the National Asthma Campaign, and in 2004, it changed its name to Asthma UK.
In December 2019, Asthma UK and the British Lung Foundation announced that they had agreed to merge, to form a new charity under the name of Asthma + Lung UK.[3]
Asthma + Lung UK appointed Sarah Sleet as its new chief executive officer in January 2024.[6] She replaced Sarah Woolnough, who had been in post for the previous three years.[7]
Asthma + Lung UK – and its previous incarnations – is known for the research it has been carrying out into asthma and lung disease for the past decades. It has informed a number of parliamentary debates on the issue.[8][9][10]
Since 2012, Asthma UK has conducted an annual survey of people with asthma,[11] looking into their experience of living with the condition and the care they receive.[12][13][14] The survey has been taken over and continued by Asthma + Lung UK since the merger with the British Lung Foundation.[15]
In 2014, Asthma UK founded the Centre for Applied Research in asthma at University of Edinburgh.[16] The Centre has been a regular participant in the Scottish Parliament's Cross-Party Group on Lung Health since its inception in 2021.[17][18]
The British Lung Foundation helped found the Taskforce for Lung Health in 2018,[19] which brought together representatives from over 40 organisations in the sector to make recommendations on how to improve care for lung disease in the UK. In 2020, the taskforce revealed that lung patients’ symptoms had improved during lockdown as a result of a drop in air pollution.[20] However in 2021, it warned that one fifth of lung disease patients had to wait more than a year for a prognosis, and risked dying before they were even diagnosed.[21]
In 2023, Asthma + Lung UK published research which suggested up to 750,000 people in England were being misdiagnosed with asthma, due to a lack of simple tests for common lung conditions.[22][23] The research claimed these misdiagnoses cost the government an estimated £132 million each year.
Research published by the charity in 2024 showed that while deaths from asthma attacks were up by a quarter since 2010, two thirds of asthma deaths were preventable.[24]
In 2021-22, Asthma + Lung UK generated £13.9 million.[25] Of this amount, £5.1m came from legacies (37%), £4.3m from donations (31%), £1.4m from fundraising (10%), £1.3m from grants (9%), £0.5m from gifts in kind (4%), and £0.4m from its investment portfolio (3%).
