Convincing the NHS to give me the best treatment possible?

General Discussion on any topic relating to CPAP and/or Sleep Apnea.
tedtomato
Posts: 195
Joined: Sun Nov 13, 2016 3:30 am
Location: London, UK

Re: Convincing the NHS to give me the best treatment possible?

Post by tedtomato » Sat Mar 25, 2017 8:15 pm

As it has been already said, the NHS will not necessarily have the same policy across the UK, so local trusts will decide what machine they give out, based on their budget.

In my case, they were giving out Resmed Airsense 10 Elite machines, and didn't even have an Autoset in stock. While in the USA, there is only a $80 difference between those models, I believe the cost difference is £150 at least in the UK, based on Resmed UK own pricing.

If the NHS provides you with an APAP machine for a couple of weeks on loan to determine the best pressure, then I would download Sleepyhead, and keep all the data.

If you can show that the machine changes its pressure a lot through the night to deal with events (and I think it most likely will), then maybe you can make a case to keep the Auto machine.

Otherwise, as Rick Blaine mentioned, you could take the NHS CPap machine, keep it as a backup machine, but buy your own APAP one. You would still get free masks, appointments etc from the NHS. The cost of masks alone is not negligible, particularly if you need to try a few before finding one that works for you.

Resmed currently sells the Autoset model new for £600, and Second Wind has S9 Autoset machines for $379 (+ probably $80 shipping), or about £360.

The Resmed S9 machine is pretty much the same as the Airsense 10 internally, apart from a different case/size.

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Hannibal 2
Posts: 496
Joined: Sun Nov 20, 2016 4:46 am
Location: Derbyshire UK

Re: Convincing the NHS to give me the best treatment possible?

Post by Hannibal 2 » Sun Mar 26, 2017 2:11 am

tedtomato wrote:
If the NHS provides you with an APAP machine for a couple of weeks on loan to determine the best pressure, then I would download Sleepyhead, and keep all the data.
Agree, take full advantage of that, I only ever got to take an APAP machine home for one night at a time, and they were adjusting my CPAP pressure based on that, ridiculous in hindsight! But as I said earlier, I had put complete faith in the hospital to do things correctly.

If you can show that the machine changes its pressure a lot through the night to deal with events (and I think it most likely will), then maybe you can make a case to keep the Auto machine.
Not convinced but if you don't ask you don't get.
Otherwise, as Rick Blaine mentioned, you could take the NHS CPap machine, keep it as a backup machine, but buy your own APAP one. You would still get free masks, appointments etc from the NHS. The cost of masks alone is not negligible, particularly if you need to try a few before finding one that works for you.
Exactly what I have done, and I am actually going to the hospital tomorrow for a mask review.

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