Home non-invasive ventilation service

It is part of the University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust East. The team currently consists of a respiratory consultant and specialist respiratory nurses as well as support from respiratory and cardiac physiologists for some of your investigations and the medical engineering department to help servicing and repairing your equipment. We work closely with the community respiratory teams and rest of the respiratory department who you might already know.

We care for patients who need support with their breathing at home, with the use of a device called a ventilator that attaches to a tight fitting mask.

How we help

Our patient group includes people diagnosed with:

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)
Obesity hypoventilation syndrome (OHS)
Obesity hypoventilation syndrome with obstructive sleep apnoea overlap (OHS/OSA).
Chest wall deformities (CWD).

We will make the decision for starting home non-invasive ventilation (NIV) either as an outpatient, following an inpatient admission or during an acute inpatient admission. In preparation for this decision there is a series of tests that need to be performed, both when starting NIV treatment and in longer term monitoring the ventilation treatment.

What happens at your appointment

Outpatient appointments might be with a consultant or a clinical nurse specialist. Appointments might include monitoring blood tests (including from the ear lobe) as well as checking the ventilation equipment itself and potentially carrying out maintenance of the equipment. The frequency of your appointments will depend on how you are managing with the ventilation, but will be at least every year, but probably closer to every three months as the team gets to know you and your needs.

Appointments might be remote (via telephone) as the team can check your ventilation machine remotely or in person. You will be informed whether appointments are in person or via the telephone.

On occasions a planned admission will be needed for you to be monitored continuously overnight to set you up on the ventilator. This will be under the respiratory team in a specialist respiratory ward.

Getting ready for your appointment

You should try to bring your ventilator (and mask) with you to all outpatient NIV clinics for the machine to be checked, as well as any acute admissions when you will need to continue to use your ventilation during your admission.