An investigation has been completed by the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch into the provision of piped oxygen gas supplies to UK hospitals, concluding that improvements could be made to existing infrastructure in order to ensure that hospitals meet oxygen flow needs.
The report, titled ‘Oxygen issues during the Covid-19 pandemic’, endeavoured to investigate limitations in piped oxygen supply to hospitals and explore the role of engineering specialists and medical gasses committees in piped oxygen supply.
The investigation explored a reference event where a major incident was declared by an acute hospital trust (Trust) when oxygen supply demands, delivered via its medical gas pipeline system (MGPS), led to patients being diverted to different hospitals, elective (planned, non-emergency) surgery being cancelled, and a need to reconfigure ward environments.
Further to this, the report states that the Trust began identifying mitigating measures that would allow it to carry out a test on the MGPS in the High Dependency Unit (HDU). It also states that the Trust carried out a pressure test on the MGPS to identify failures, with the results identifying several areas where there was a reduced ability to provide the anticipated flow of oxygen from the MGPS.
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