Through our community-based respiratory specialists and utilising remote monitoring and educational tools such as telehealth, our services can assist acute Trusts by providing care and support to patients discharged home following a respiratory admission.

BOC’s Healthcare division is the UK's leading supplier of medicinal gases and related services to healthcare organisations. Throughout hospitals, ambulance services, treatment centres, GP surgeries, dental practices, a wide range of medicinal gases are used to provide crucial care and improve the lives of patients. BOC provides products for almost every hospital department, from nitrous oxide for anaesthesia to liquid helium for cooling the magnets of MRIs.

Avoiding admissions for respiratory conditions is the key objective of all our community clinical services.

Through holistically assessing patients’ conditions and therapy needs, we work with the patient to develop a personalised education programme to help them understand their condition, manage their breathlessness and recognise when their health is deteriorating. We use a range of tools to deliver this self-management education, including remote monitoring through telehealth for suitable patients.

As home oxygen service provider in three NHS government regions, BOC serves around 17,000 patients with all their oxygen needs in the home environment. The home oxygen service sees us managing tens of thousands of medical devices and cylinders, and providing a 24/7 support service through our teams of local homecare engineers. Our patient service centre team handles receives hundreds of call per day from patients, carers and healthcare professionals.

Across all our community respiratory services, our teams of healthcare professionals focus on helping patients to understand their condition better in order to be able to live as normal a daily life as possible, and ultimately help ICBs in effectively managing use of local NHS resources.

Our clinicians deploy a variety of resources, including telehealth, to identify barriers to self-management, understanding how breathlessness limits the patient’s quality of life & affects their daily routine. We integrate into local respiratory pathways and identify further referrals to other agencies that may be required to support either the patient or their carer in self-management.

End-of-Life care is a complex process which represents one of the most challenging clinical areas in which to specialise. COPD is a terminal illness and following the recommendations of the National Strategic Framework for COPD, palliative care plans are required for all COPD patients. BOC provide holistic, high-quality care for all COPD patients at the end of their live, including support for families and carers, and advocate the value of supported care pathways.

End-of-Life assessment tools are embedded in BOC Healthcare’s services, incorporating the Gold Standard Frameworks to ensure that quality and co-ordination of care is established and integrated across the different healthcare settings within the local community.

Ensuring appropriate prescribing of home oxygen, and achieving optimal therapy benefits, are the key objectives of our home oxygen assessment and review services, which we currently provide on behalf of seven NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups across England.

Our team of locally-based respiratory specialist nurses are responsible for assessing and regularly reviewing the oxygen therapy needs of all patients indicated as requiring oxygen for their condition, in accordance with BTS Home Oxygen Guidelines.

Bringing care closer to home, we run clinics in GP practices and health centres across the ICB community; visiting patients at home in accordance with clinical guidelines and as required.

We work closely with local referrers from both primary and secondary care to improve referral relevance and rates. We also liaise with the regional home oxygen service provider to ensure accurate oxygen patient registers.

Improving accessibility to pulmonary rehabilitation programmes and supporting patients to realise optimal benefits of this course through an understanding of how to manage their breathlessness are the aims of our pulmonary rehabilitation services.

Led by respiratory physiotherapists or nurses and following BTS Guidelines for Pulmonary Rehabilitation, our multi-disciplinary teams conduct initial assessments before inviting suitable patients to attend a twice-weekly six-week group exercise and education programme. Our completion assessments review improvements in fitness tolerance as well as other quality-of life-factors, such as anxiety, using internationally recognised and validated questionnaires.

Recognising that removing barriers to participation is crucial in encouraging patients to take part in pulmonary rehabilitation, we host rolling programmes in community-based venues such as village halls or leisure centres in key localities across the ICB geography. We look at innovative approaches for those patients who are unable to attend the group sessions and we proactively manage DNAs.

Our cardiac rehabilitation program is designed to support patients in their recovery following a cardiac event, such as a heart attack or heart surgery. Our team of trained healthcare professionals, including cardiac physiotherapists and nurses, provides expert advice and support to help patients regain strength, improve their physical function, and reduce their risk of future cardiovascular events.

We work closely with local cardiac rehabilitation services, cardiologists, nurses, and other healthcare professionals to provide a tailored program aimed at patients' individual health needs. Our program includes supervised exercise sessions, health education, and lifestyle modification programs, which are all designed to support recovery and return to work.

Our team ensures that each patient receives comprehensive care throughout their recovery journey. We provide a holistic and patient-centred approach to address not only the physical but also the psychological and emotional aspects of rehabilitation.

Through regular assessments and monitoring, we ensure our program meets each patient's unique needs and adjust accordingly. Our team also encourages patients to develop self-management strategies and healthy lifestyle habits to maintain their long-term health and well-being.

We are committed to providing our patients with high-quality cardiac rehabilitation services and continuing to improve our programme's outcomes with evidence-based assessments and interventions.

Our Primary Care Respiratory Service is a dedicated respiratory clinic run by our team of respiratory specialist nurses. The clinics take place in accessible community locations across the Wigan locality and are commissioned by GM ICB.

Our team of registered respiratory nurses provides spirometry and FeNO testing in line with national guidelines and best practice. We have ARTP registration and nurse prescribing abilities, so we can perform and interpret spirometry testing, confirm respiratory diagnoses and offer person-centered treatments that are specific to each patient.

If required, the team works in partnership with local secondary care hospitals to provide further investigations and to ensure the service is high-quality, safe, and effective.

Spirometry testing can help diagnose and monitor respiratory conditions such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), cystic fibrosis, and pulmonary fibrosis. We use FeNO devices to measure fractional exhaled nitric oxide in the breath of patients as a biomarker for asthma. This indicates the level of inflammation in the lungs, guides inhaler or specialist treatment management, and enhances symptom relief.

We are committed to providing optimal patient outcomes through accurate diagnosis, education, and management of respiratory conditions.

Linde Healthcare supports hundreds of thousands of people living with Obstructive Sleep Apnoea (OSA) worldwide, through the provision and support of their CPAP therapy.

Linked to the alarmingly high growth in obesity, the prevalence of OSA is presents a significant pressure on already-stretched resources at primary and secondary care levels; and this is with only 20% of sufferers being diagnosed in the UK.

By working with specialist NHS sleep healthcare professionals, BOC can deliver a community-based service model to support the long-term monitoring and review of patients on CPAP therapy, freeing-up specialist resources to focus on diagnoses and complex sleep cases.