The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 276 No 7394 p375
1 April 2006

This article
Reprint   Photocopy

  Acrobat Reader

News summary

Oxygen supply to continue until transfer of last patient

GPs in England and Wales can continue to write prescriptions for the supply of oxygen by community pharmacists where patients need oxygen at home and regional supplier companies cannot provide it, it was emphasised last week.

Pharmacy contractors providing cylinders prescribed on FP10s will continue to receive payment under local arrangements, NHS Primary Care Contracting said in its home oxygen bulletin. “There is no 31 March cut off date. These arrangements will continue until the transfer of all patients using the home oxygen service to new suppliers,” it added.

Brian Gibbons, Minister for Health and Social Services of the Welsh Assembly Government, said that WP10s for oxygen will continue to be valid until further notice. He explained that the extra costs to achieve continuity of supply to patients in Wales would be met centrally by NHS Wales and praised pharmacists’ response to the problems with the new home oxygen service.

“I continue to be grateful to those community pharmacists who have extended their service throughout February and into March. This is typical of the professionalism of pharmacists in Wales, which we value so highly,” Mr Gibbons said. “If we had not had the commitment to [the] service from pharmacists, many patients would have been left high and dry. We certainly owe the community pharmacists a great deal,” he added.

However, Mr Gibbons refused to give a date for when pharmacists in Wales will no longer be required to supply oxygen cylinders. “Until we are sure that the Air Products operation is totally resilient, I am not going to draw any false lines in the sand. The time to hand over totally to Air Products is when we are sure that it is capable of delivering the contract,” he said.

Also last week, health minister Jane Kennedy explained that the Department of Health can rescind the contracts of home oxygen providers in England if terms of the agreements are breached. In a House of Commons written answer, Ms Kennedy said: “The DoH can terminate the contract of any supplier who breaches material terms of their contract and require the outgoing supplier to meet the costs incurred where another supplier is brought in to provide the service. Where the service delivery fails to meet the standards set out in the contract, the supplier may be required to re-perform those services.”