This is the fifth instalment in a series running all week on the events and stories that impacted GPs in 2020.

For part four, click here.

It’s not every year guideline changes and PBS listings are front-page news, but it happened in 2020, with landmark new advice on mild asthma and the use of budesonide–formoterol.

In 2019, the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) declared no patient with mild asthma should be treated with a short-acting beta2 agonist (SABA) alone — a move labelled “the most significant change in asthma management in over 30 years”.