COUNCIL chiefs in Worcestershire have admitted they do not know how many asthma sufferers there are at schools in the county - despite saying the figure could top 6,000.

Bosses at County Hall say neither themselves or NHS officials keep track on how many pupils suffer from it, despite Britain being one of the most prevalent countries in the world for the respiratory condition.

Nationally 1 in 11 children are thought to suffer from it, with each UK classroom having around three pupils with asthma.

The county council says there are 74,300 children on its books getting schooling, and if the national estimates were used 6,800 Worcestershire pupils would have asthma.

But it does not keep a tally, which has led to the opposition Labour group questioning Councillor John Smith, the cabinet member for health and wellbeing.

Councillor Smith, speaking during a meeting at County Hall, said: "We don't have figures breaking down asthma sufferers, and we've contacted our NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups who are unable to give a breakdown by age."

Councillor McDonald, who leads the Labour group, urged him to consider copying a scheme in London where child asthma sufferers are used as volunteers to help monitor pollution levels.

"I wonder if he'd like to consider what's going on in parts of London," he said.

"They pick out groups of young children with asthma and they wear monitoring equipment to see where the pollution levels are at, whether they are walking to school or whatever.

"I wonder whether we'd consider doing that - it seems to be successful in London to identify the worst pollution areas."

But the idea is not expected to be taken up by the administration.

Councillor Smith said: "We can certainly look into that, but I do think in all fairness Worcestershire's air conditions are a lot better than the southeast."

After four years of campaigning, MPs changed the law in October 2014 to help keep children with asthma safe.

Schools are now allowed to hold spare emergency inhalers in case the child's original one is missing.

Previously it was illegal for schools to have a spare emergency inhaler even though exemptions existed for organisations like the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and the armed forces.