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Letters to the Editor
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Oxygen services
We must learn from what has gone wrong
From Mr M. Beaman, MRPharmS
There has been considerable coverage of the recent changes to the home
oxygen service and the letters from Beryl
Bevan and Paul
Breame (PJ,
25 February, p229 and p230) provide an accurate and comprehensive overview
of the issues involved.
In the midst of all the negative points expressed in the media we should
not lose sight of the fact that the place of oxygen in respiratory medicine
has changed considerably in recent years and modernisation of the service
was inevitable. This is no criticism of community pharmacists, who have
provided an excellent service over the years within the constraints provided.
In my own area of Eastern England, there has been detailed planning in
place for over a year consisting of a network of local implementation
groups co-ordinated and ably led by the regional reference group.The
fact that implementation has been problematic is in no small way due
to the fact that the key players involved in primary care, both users
and commissioners, have been operating against a background of unprecedented
change in the NHS, coupled with financial and management cuts this year
with an uncertain future for a number of us in 2007. Small wonder that
events have not gone smoothly. A number of us in primary care trusts
have worked hard to resolve local problems of supply for our patients,
yet none of this has been reported in the press — but then why
should one be so surprised by that?
We must now learn from what has gone wrong and renew our focus on improving
patient care in this area of medicine.
The challenge to the NHS is to continue to modernise this area of patient
care engaging the best elements of community pharmacy with the advantages
of the national provider companies.
Mike Beaman
Chief Pharmacist
North Hertfordshire and Stevenage Primary Care Trust
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The
Pharmaceutical Journal