OXYGEN SYSTEMS


From the earliest stages of lockdown, at all times additional trained drivers were on standby to prevent any interruption to liquid oxygen supply, not just to hospitals, but also to other areas of critical national infrastructure, such as drinking water treatment plants.


Close customer collaboration As I said at the start of this article, a key learning from our operations throughout lockdown has been the importance of collaboration with our customers, and working closely with them to help prevent any interruptions in supply; using technology has been a big part of this – to ensure greater precision in monitoring liquid gas levels. Closely monitoring customer tank levels has been crucial to help plan our deliveries, so we used telemetry technology to take precise measurements of the gas available. While telemetry is intended to be used as an inventory management tool, hospitals were eager to use the information to try and understand gas flowrates being consumed. By altering the rate at which our systems receive these datapoints, we were quickly able to translate this data to be used at a clinical level to understand


gas being used, and how much spare capacity still existed in their system. Tank levels were being constantly monitored at our liquid scheduling centres, with more frequent deliveries planned to keep more stock on sites to give assurance to our customers of their ability to keep patient treatments going without fear of lack of oxygen.


Reminders on safety measures In addition to monitoring support, our engineers also worked closely with healthcare estate teams to distribute reminders related to safety, particularly to help deal with any ice build-up on the vaporisers which turn cryogenic liquid oxygen into the gas that patients breathe. We provided healthcare teams with step-by-step guidance on how to handle increased demand on the medical oxygen supply systems, along with advice on how to manage ice build-up to maintain performance.


Managing stress – both at home and elsewhere


By early November, Air Products had supported 12 UK hospital upgrade projects in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including installing oxygen systems at the NHS Nightingale Hospital Birmingham (pictured below), and Scotland’s NHS Louisa Jordan Hospital.


The stress felt across the entire supply chain at the start of the pandemic was entirely unsurprising, and was something that had to be carefully managed over the ensuing 8-9 months to make sure we all come through it together. Our operations quickly became about more than filling customer orders – there was a heightened importance to the work, and a greater sensitivity to the pressures on healthcare professionals trying to deliver under the most difficult of circumstances. Our customer service teams noticed customers reacting to this situation in different ways – some were in more frequent contact to look for reassurance, many needed help to fill unexpected orders at short notice, and all – in one way or another – demonstrated the stress they were under. We held workshops for our customer service teams to keep their focus on helping to manage the additional stress people were feeling. With concerns over a shortage of supply at the forefront of everyone’s minds, it wasn’t enough that we knew we could deliver – we knew we needed to continually communicate this to everyone else involved.


These workshops had a dual purpose – in addition to helping customers deal with the stresses of the pandemic, and allowing them to receive their orders in the quickest and least stressful way possible, we also took the opportunity to assess the health and wellbeing of our own staff. We worked with staff to assess their own resilience to the additional pressure put on them, and to help those who needed to de-stress. Our Employee Assistance Programme provided health and wellbeing resources, while one-to- one catch-up calls were arranged for


68 Health Estate Journal March 2021


Steve Soper


Steve Soper is a Business manager at leading industrial gases company, Air Products Plc. Working for the company for the past 22 years, his experience spans many areas of the gases business. Specialising in business development and account management, his current role sees him lead a large team of internal and external key account managers. In addition to leading UK & Ireland account management strategy, he manages the development of its Helium and Medical business areas. His work in the medical gas arena spans 15 years of his career, and, during this time, he has developed a wide-reaching network of contacts. His work in collaboration with Air Products’ technical and engineering teams ensures that their hospital customers have the most robust and resilient gas delivery systems to meet the needs of the site on which they are installed.


employees to talk through any issues they experienced. This also factored into our working practices, with an early decision taken to accommodate flexible working where appropriate in the earliest days of the outbreak – protecting our staff as they worked to deliver supplies to the sector.


A long-term impact?


The work undertaken over the last seven months has required everyone involved in the sector to take a longer look at the parts of the supply chain they don’t normally work closely with. Each of us has needed to review and reassess our processes, and keep each other informed of this work to combat problems which could, in the most serious cases, have endangered lives. The changes that everyone has made are something we can be truly proud of, and this enhanced collaboration will surely stand the test of time – not just amid continued uncertainty, but to keep the sector running smoothly in the long term.


hej


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