What’s new in asthma care? NAC releases updated handbook
Published: 19 November 2025
Article submitted by: National Asthma Council Australia
The update involved a major revision of clinical guidance and a complete redesign of the website, led by a multidisciplinary network of leading expert primary care and specialist contributors on the National Asthma Council (NAC) Guidelines Committee.
What’s new
The NAC’s updated Australian Asthma Handbook guidelines outline a shift in how asthma is managed by:
- encouraging health professionals to stop prescribing or advising treatment with as-needed short-acting beta2 agonists (SABA) or commonly known as the blue puffer alone to manage asthma in adults and adolescents
- recommending anti-inflammatory reliever only therapy and maintenance-and-reliever therapy for adults and adolescents (aged over 12 years)
- providing recommendations for patients with severe asthma that cannot be controlled with inhaled corticosteroid (ICS)-containing treatments
- offering guidance on pathways for timely and streamlined referral of patients to monoclonal antibody therapies
In Australia the common approach for people with asthma was to be on SABA (blue puffer), to take as needed. This treats the asthma symptoms, but it does not treat the cause of asthma — inflammation (swelling) in the airways.
Many patients are also managing their own asthma with blue puffers that they can buy over the counter at the pharmacy. This causes people to rely too much on SABA which can lead to the risk of serious asthma attacks.
Instead, the new guidelines recommend that people aged 12+ with asthma are treated with anti-inflammatory relievers. This combined medication gives relief from symptoms, and prevents inflammation (swelling) in the lungs that causes asthma attacks.
These changes mean that people with asthma, including mild asthma, need to see their GP for an asthma check-up, to ensure they are on the right treatment and that they have an up-to-date asthma action plan.
View the updated guidelines: asthmahandbook.org.au
From paper chase to digital care: A new era for asthma action plans
The National Asthma Council and papersGP are making it easier to have an up-to-date asthma action plan.
Every GP knows the scenario: a parent rushes in needing their child’s asthma action plan for school again. The original is lost, the medication has changed, and there’s no time to print, fill out, scan, and email another copy before the school excursion tomorrow.
The papersGP NAC Action Plan Portal transforms life-saving asthma action plans from static paper documents that get lost, outdated, or are unavailable when needed most, into living, connected, always-accessible care tools.
PapersGP integrates with Healthdirect’s National Health Services Directory to streamline the registration process. Practitioners can confirm their details instantly, and patients can use the provider lookup to find their preferred general practitioner.
How it works
During the consultation, practitioners create NAC Australian Asthma Handbook-adherent digital action plans in just a few clicks, selecting medications that auto-fill with evidence-based options.
The plan instantly saves to the patient’s secure web portal, where it can be shared with healthcare providers, carers, schools, daycare, and community organisations. When medications change, update once and the changes flow everywhere the plan is shared.
Built to modern healthcare information standards and designed by a GP to engage all parts of the asthma care network, the portal makes going digital simple for everyone — including schools finally able to move beyond filing cabinets full of outdated paper forms.
Practitioners can quickly create and update asthma action plans online.
Why it matters
Around 2.8 million (11%) people in Australia were estimated to be living with asthma in 2022.
With 68% of Australians with asthma lacking written action plans, the gap is significant. Evidence shows these plans reduce hospital admissions by 40% and emergency presentations by 20% — but only if they’re accessible when emergencies happen.
The papersGP NAC Action Plan portal is available to all AHPRA-registered health practitioners with asthma management in their scope of practice: GPs, medical specialists, pharmacists, practice nurses, and asthma educators. Patients can register through their healthcare practitioner.
Free practitioner registration: doctor.papersgp.com
Last reviewed: December 2025