Care Homes: Ventilators
(asked on 18th May 2020) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of supporting people in care homes with covid-19 using continuous positive airway pressure ventilators.
Although Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) devices can be used in the home setting to treat some long-term conditions, it is not suitable for use at home or in care homes to treat patients who are acutely unwell with COVID-19. This is because their installation and use requires a high level of technical and clinical support which can only be safely provided in a hospital setting. In normal circumstances, CPAP for COVID-19 would only be provided on specialist wards, such as respiratory wards or critical care units, where there is a high level of nursing and medical support, and where immediate medical support is available in the event that a patient deteriorates. Guidance on the use of CPAP devices can be found at the following link:
Between mid-March and mid-May 2020 around 3,000 more mechanical ventilators and over 8,000 non-invasive ventilators capable of delivering CPAP are now available to the National Health Service across the United Kingdom.