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| TX: 17.02.06 - Oxygen PRESENTER: WINIFRED ROBINSON |
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| Downloaded from www.bbc.co.uk/radio4 THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE BBC CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY. ROBINSON Patients who rely on getting oxygen delivered to their homes are experiencing severe problems with supplies. Two weeks ago four private companies took over responsibility for supplies on behalf of the NHS but patients are saying that they're experiencing delays and a primary care trust in Carlisle is investigating whether the death of a woman, who used oxygen cylinders, was as a result of a delay in getting her supply. Our reporter Carolyn Atkinson is here and she's been looking into it. Carolyn, how then has the system changed? ATKINSON Well there's 60,000 people who get oxygen supplies at home for conditions like heart problems or emphysema, cystic fibrosis. They went to their GP, their GP wrote a prescription, then you took it to your pharmacist, just like you would with antibiotics or antidepressants or whatever and the oxygen cylinders were then delivered to your home. Now last summer it was confirmed that that system was changing, four companies won the contract to supply oxygen to people's homes and three of those were already supplying NHS patients under the old system. ROBINSON How then does the new system work? ATKINSON Well from February 1st basically the middle man has been cut out and that middle man is the pharmacist. The GP now makes the request for oxygen directly to one of the four companies and that depends on which part of the country you live in, because it's been divided up geographically. The GP fills in what's called a HOOF form, that's a home oxygen order form, and faxes that through to the company and then from that information the company prioritises patients and acts accordingly. ROBINSON What's meant to be the advantage of this new system then? ATKINSON Well you might imagine it might be cheaper but that is not the case. It used to cost about £18 million a year to fund the home oxygen service and that really won't change very much under the new system. The Department of Health say the main advantage is that patients will benefit from much more modern systems, things like smaller portable cylinders for example, lighter cylinders, much more adapted to a person's needs and lifestyle, rather than a one size fits all. And that is of course if it works. Now at the moment, as we've been hearing, there have been problems. One person experiencing that first hand is Emily Thackray, who has cystic fibrosis. Now she at the moment is on a transplant list waiting for a double lung transplant. She knew the system was changing on February 1st, she'd discussed things with her GP but when the new system kicked in it didn't work for her. THACKRAY In the last week of January I made sure I ordered an extra four cylinders from my chemist in case there was any slight hiccup but each cylinder only lasts me about two and a half hours anyway. A couple of days into February I still hadn't heard anything, which is when I began trying to phone the company. I got through to an advisor who said all our main advisors are busy and somebody will get back to you. Four hours later I hadn't heard anything. I tried to phone again, was told the same. The next day still hadn't heard anything. Tried to phone again, this time there was no answer at all. At which point I contacted the Cystic Fibrosis Trust to try and fight my battle on my behalf because I'm currently waiting for a transplant and not very well. And this was my main concern really because should I get called for my transplant tonight I need to be able to leave the house immediately and therefore need portable oxygen very urgently. When it got to the point where I only had two cylinders left and I couldn't get through to anybody on the phone, nobody who could give me any information, and this was the worst bit - it wasn't that somebody said there will be a delay, it's just nobody was telling me anything, all I got told was somebody will get back to you and nobody ever did. ATKINSON That's Emily Thackray who's had problems with her oxygen suppliers. ROBINSON Well Carolyn Atkinson stay with us if you would because on the line now we have Colin Smith who was from a company called Air Products and that is one of the four companies who provide the oxygen. Mr Smith, I understand that yours was the company that was meant to provide Alice Broderick - the woman who died in Carlisle - with an oxygen supply. What can you tell us about her case? SMITH Well first of all we're very sorry to hear about Mrs Broderick and extend our every sympathy to her family. We are undertaking a comprehensive investigation to try and establish precisely the facts of the case and we're committed to providing the best possible service to our patients and are going to do everything we can to find out what happened. Beyond that really obviously I cannot comment in detail because of the fact that an investigation is in process. ROBINSON We've just heard from Emily Thackray about the delays that people like her are experiencing, from your point of view then what is going wrong here? SMITH Well first of all let me apologise to Miss Thackray and the other patients who've had trouble up until the beginning of last week in getting through to the help line. There was a much larger influx of new patients to the new service on the first few days of February than I think to be frank anybody had anticipated in all of the regions of England and Wales. Normally patients obviously present at a fairly regular pace throughout the month or every day of the week and throughout the month but what we were seeing in the first few days is the fact that maybe two or three weeks of patient requirements were coming to us in two or three days. And we worked very closely together with the Department of Health and the NHS to rapidly address this, I mean from our own companies point of view we put on - we trebled the number of people answering phone calls, for example, so that patients could get through and we could ensure that their concerns were responded to. ROBINSON So this is a question of nobody knowing exactly how many people would contact you for oxygen? SMITH Well not so much not knowing how many people in total, I think that's reasonably well understood, and bearing in mind we have been providing half of the patients involved with a direct to their home concentrator service, as it's called, there are machines that make oxygen that you plug into the mains, for about 18 years. So we do have a very established business and service providing patients with this service. It really just is a question that having a significant change on the 1st February it's obviously taken - quite naturally taken everyone a bit of time to adjust to the new processes about how to obtain supplies. ROBINSON Okay Colin Smith from Air Products, thank you. And Carolyn Atkinson is still with us. Carolyn, any idea then when this is going to be sorted out and what people should do who cannot get oxygen supplies? ATKINSON Well there is one update to tell you about. Because of all these problems the old system has been brought back in, as well as the new system, to run alongside it, as it were, to sort of ease the transition process. And that's running from now up till March 31st, so basically you can still get a prescription and go to your pharmacist like you used to. ROBINSON Carolyn Atkinson, thank you. Back to the You and Yours homepage The BBC is not responsible for external websites |
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