This story was first published in digitalhealth.net
High demand for oxygen in hospitals risks system failure
NHS England has warned that demand for oxygen to treat coronavirus patients is running so high in some hospitals that systems could suddenly fail.
An oxygen alert notice called for immediate action by trusts to prevent outages, after the NHS warned that some hospitals are exceeding the maximum flow of oxygen from their tanks. This risks them freezing up and causing vital gas flow ‘to drop unexpectedly, compromising supply to patients’.
Some hospitals have been asking their doctors to limit the amount of oxygen they give to patients to safeguard supplies while keeping patients safe. Staff at Watford General Hospital asked the public to stay away because of a critical incident with the oxygen supply and some patients were moved out to prevent the system failing.
Oxygen delivered through masks or ventilators is a key therapy used to treat life-threatening cases of coronavirus. The NHS has now claimed that urgent steps to prevent problems must be taken by 10 April ‘to ensure critical oxygen systems are not damaged, compromising patient safety and the whole hospital’. If systems break under the current strain, there may be no spares available for repairs.
Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents foundation trusts, said: “We have all been looking at ventilator capacity and saying that’s key, and that’s right. But we’ve now discovered that the capacity of a hospital’s internal oxygen system to support is potentially just as important. If a hospital doesn’t have enough capacity to ventilate patients, it will look to transfer patients to its nearest neighbour.”
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