Costs and access

How to access treatment

Referrals are not open yet. They will open when our first hospital-based Centre of Excellence opens.

Until then, you can use our enquiry form to register interest. Registering interest is not a referral, and it does not mean that treatment will be offered.

If you are a healthcare professional, please use our referral pathway page to refer a patient.

Our treatment pathway page explains the steps involved, from a first enquiry through to a course of treatment. Whether treatment is offered is only decided after a medical assessment.

What a course involves and why costs vary

Once we open, every course will start with a medical assessment. HBOT is not suitable for everyone, and the assessment may conclude that it is not appropriate for you.

If treatment may have a role, the doctor will set the pressure, the length of each session and the number of sessions, following the treatment protocol for your condition. A course typically runs from ten sessions up to sixty, with each session lasting between 60 and 120 minutes. That range is why the cost of a course varies from one person to another, and it is not a standard prescription or a guarantee of benefit.

Our what to expect page explains what happens before, during and after a session.

Private medical insurance

Before you arrange any private treatment, you should call your insurer to check that you are covered for the treatment.

HBOT on the NHS

In England, NHS hyperbaric oxygen therapy is a specialised service commissioned nationally by NHS England. NHS England's service specification (January 2025) says the service is provided for two specific indications, decompression illness and gas embolism.

NHS England lists these as not currently routinely commissioned:

• malignant otitis externa
• necrotising soft tissue infections (adults)
• soft tissue radiation damage in patients with a history of pelvic irradiation for malignant disease
• carbon monoxide poisoning
• diabetic lower limb ulceration (diabetic foot ulcer)

If you think the NHS should fund treatment for you, talk to the clinician treating you. Our condition pages set out the UK guidance and NHS position for each condition we cover.

Individual funding requests

NHS England explains that in some cases it may be possible to fund a treatment for an individual patient outside its usual policies. This is called an individual funding request, or IFR.

• The request is made by the clinician treating you. NHS England cannot accept individual funding requests directly from patients, although you can work with your clinician on it.
• NHS England looks for evidence of clinical exceptionality, evidence that the treatment is clinically effective for your condition, and that it would be a good use of NHS resources.
• Non-clinical factors, such as the effect on your ability to work or study, caring for dependants, or meeting financial commitments, cannot be considered.

We cannot make an IFR on your behalf, and we cannot tell you whether one would succeed.