PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Ryan E Robinson
AU  - Rebecca Nightingale
AU  - Freddy Frost
AU  - Tom Green
AU  - Gareth Jones
AU  - Nneka Nwosu
AU  - Peter Hampshire
AU  - Deborah Brown
AU  - Michael Beadsworth
AU  - Stephen Aston
AU  - Angela Gillespie
AU  - Mark Clark
AU  - Tom Fletcher
AU  - Neil Haslam
AU  - Hassan Burhan
AU  - Manish Gautam
TI  - The rapid development and deployment of a new multidisciplinary CPAP service outside of a critical care environment during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic
AID  - 10.7861/fhj.2020-0167
DP  - 2021 Mar 01
TA  - Future Healthcare Journal
PG  - e156--e159
VI  - 8
IP  - 1
4099  - http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/8/1/e156.short
4100  - http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/8/1/e156.full
SO  - Future Healthc J2021 Mar 01; 8
AB  - The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a dramatic increase in patients presenting with type 1 respiratory failure. In order to protect our limited critical care capacity, we rapidly developed a new ward-based inpatient continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) service with direct input from the respiratory, infectious diseases and critical care teams. Close collaboration between these specialties and new innovative solutions were required to facilitate this. CPAP equipment (normally reserved for domiciliary care) was adapted to reduce the pressure on our strained oxygen infrastructure. Side rooms on the infectious diseases ward were swiftly converted into new negative pressure areas using temporary installed ventilatory equipment, reducing the viral aerosol risk for staff. Novel patient monitoring solutions were used to protect staff while also ensuring patient safety. Staff training and specialist oversight was organised within days. The resulting service was successful, with over half (17/26 (65%)) of patients avoiding invasive ventilation.