From Clinical Care to the High Street: The Misuse of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy

Key Messages:

• Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is a well-established medical treatment, not a wellness trend or consumer product.
• Its safety and effectiveness depend on proper medical supervision, appropriate equipment, and defined clinical protocols.
• The rapid growth of unregulated “oxygen chamber” use in wellness and home settings is raising significant patient safety concerns.
• Not all hyperbaric systems are equivalent; lower-pressure or commercial offerings should not be assumed to deliver the same benefits or safety as medical-grade therapy.
• Clear regulation and medical governance are essential to protect patients and preserve the integrity of this legitimate medical discipline.

I read this article with real concern for patient safety and for a well-established medical therapy that is increasingly being misused.

As a doctor of nearly three decades and a former NHS consultant, I have seen how well-established medical treatments can be removed from regulated clinical practice and misused in wider wellness contexts without appropriate oversight.

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is a recognised medical treatment with an established role in clinical practice. It is neither complementary nor alternative medicine, nor a general wellness intervention, and it is not a panacea or a replacement for good standard care. It has been practised in hospital and academic settings since the 1950s, under medical supervision, and is supported by decades of physiological science and clinical research. There are thousands of peer-reviewed publications indexed in the National Library of Medicine describing its benefits and risks. Its indications and mechanisms are well established within the medical community, and in many parts of the world it remains firmly embedded within mainstream healthcare systems. When practised by experienced medical teams in appropriate clinical settings, adverse events are exceptionally rare, and tens of thousands of sessions are delivered safely every day worldwide under established medical governance.

However, it is important to distinguish between properly delivered medical hyperbaric oxygen therapy and the unregulated “oxygen chamber” products now marketed in wellness settings. This distinction has become increasingly important as a different narrative has begun to emerge in recent years.

As interest in wellness, biohacking, and longevity has grown—and as the genuine physiological effects of hyperbaric oxygen therapy have become better understood—the therapy has attracted increasing public attention. It is often presented through simplified or sensational headlines, focusing on anti-ageing, regeneration, or cellular optimisation without sufficient clinical context. As a result, a complex medical therapy is increasingly being reduced to a consumer wellness offering rather than delivered as a structured clinical intervention. This has led to the largely unregulated spread of “oxygen chambers,” often marketed as “mild hyperbaric therapy,” into wellness centres, spas, and high-street venues, and increasingly into homes for self-administration. Much of what is now offered under the banner of hyperbaric therapy bears little to no resemblance to medical-grade treatment.

Like many medical interventions, hyperbaric oxygen therapy is safe when properly delivered and potentially dangerous when it is not.

Risk arises from poor practice: lack of medical supervision, self-administration in non-clinical settings, inadequate training, inappropriate equipment, and disregard for basic safety principles. Allowing electronics inside chambers, combining oxygen with heat or light devices, using zip-style or poorly engineered chambers, or delivering oxygen via face masks or nasal cannula are not minor technicalities. They fundamentally compromise safety and effectiveness and introduce avoidable risks, including fire hazards and pressure-related injuries. In properly supervised medical settings, these complications are very rare and carefully monitored. However, serious incidents, including fatal chamber fires, have been reported in poorly regulated settings, underlining the consequences when basic safety standards are not followed.

These concerns are not theoretical. My perspective is grounded in clinical experience. I have been in clinical practice for nearly three decades. My career began on the front line in adult emergency medicine before I went on to specialise in paediatrics and later paediatric nephrology. At the height of my clinical and academic career, I came to hyperbaric oxygen medicine not through trend or commercial opportunity, but through clinical and personal experience. That experience led me to study the therapy in depth and to understand its true medical value.

Before establishing a medical hyperbaric facility, I spent over a year training, studying, and consulting mentors with more than three decades of experience in hyperbaric medicine. Despite my background as a consultant physician, it quickly became clear that, while the principles of the therapy are straightforward, safe and effective delivery depends on proper training, appropriate protocols, and a clear understanding of its indications and risks.

Through regular attendance at international academic conferences, I see these concerns echoed by experienced hyperbaric medicine specialists and physicians from around the world. These concerns are not mine alone but widely shared across the international hyperbaric medicine community.

What concerns me most, as a clinician, is not only the physical danger, but the erosion of trust. Patients are often led to believe they are receiving medical care when they are not, exposed to treatments that are at best ineffective and at worst unsafe. At the same time, serious incidents risk discrediting a legitimate medical therapy that, when delivered correctly and for the right patients, can be genuinely life changing.

It is painful to see hyperbaric oxygen therapy misrepresented and mishandled. The answer is not to dismiss the therapy itself, but to insist on proper regulation, medical governance, and a clear distinction between evidence-based hyperbaric medicine and unsafe commercial imitation.

As with other established medical treatments, patients deserve care that is safe, ethical, and grounded in science. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy, when practised under expert medical supervision, has a meaningful place in modern medicine. We owe it to our patients, and to the integrity of the profession, to protect that standard.