Teams and services
Respiratory or ventilation service
The service that sets up and looks after your breathing support, and usually the people you deal with far more often than the respiratory doctor.
A service you are referred to, rather than one person you meet.
Breathing support is run by a service rather than by one person. Depending on the country that team may include a physician, specialist nurses, physiotherapists, respiratory physiologists or scientists, and in North America respiratory therapists. They are the people who fit the mask, change the settings, download the data and answer the phone when the machine alarms at 2am.
How you reach this person, and who pays, depends on where you live. Set your country in Location and Compass will show what applies there.
What they can help with
- Setting up non-invasive ventilation and finding a mask you can tolerate
- Adjusting settings when it is uncomfortable, noisy or making you claustrophobic
- Cough assist machines, breath stacking and suction
- Regular downloads and reviews, which is how anyone knows whether it is working
- Emergency and out of hours advice about the equipment
- Servicing, replacement parts and consumables
When you might meet them
- When breathing tests have started to change
- When ventilation is first prescribed, and every time it is uncomfortable afterwards
- When a cough assist machine or suction is introduced
- When you have a chest infection
- At routine reviews, which are usually every few months
Things you could ask about
- Who exactly do I ring when the machine is the problem?
- Can I try more than one mask before deciding?
- What is a normal alarm and what is a worrying one?
- What happens to my equipment if I travel, or if the power goes out?
- How often will you check the download, and can I see it?