Asthma: 1,000 deaths a year 'preventable' However, Dr Saralaya warned: "It can even kill those at the mild end of disease." He said too many patients skipped regularly using their "preventer" inhaler - which contains a low-dose steroid - and relied solely on the "reliever" inhaler when undergoing an attack. They failed to realise that the mild steroid would stop their asthma getting worse over time, he said, thereby risking their lives in the long term. He said: "We really need to raise the profile of the disease. Patients need to be educated properly about it, and then take a bit more responsibility for managing it themselves. Meanwhile, a poll of 333 people with severe asthma, conducted by Ipsos MORI and funded by drugs firm Novartis, has found that more than a quarter (28 per cent) have ended up on life support at least once due to their condition. It also found that, of patients admitted to hospital due to their asthma in the last year, a fifth (22 per cent) had spent more than 15 nights there before being discharged. About £1 billion a year - nearly one per cent of the NHS entire NHS budget - is spent on asthma. Eighty per cent of this is spent on severe asthmatics, due largely to the costs of hospitalisations. Neil Churchill, chief executive of the charity Asthma UK, said severe asthma compromised the lives of some 250,000 people "to such an extent that they are unable to hold down a job or go shopping."