The committee agreed that due to this early discontinuation and the Chronic Heart Failure Advanced heart failure and palliative care NICE 2018. All rights reserved. Subject to Notice of rights. ISBN: 978-1-4731-3093-7 selective nature of the outcome reporting on this arm of the trial, the data reported for this arm would not be analysed. Trade-off between clinical benefits and harms In people with severe heart failure, domiciliary oxygen prescribed for up to 15 hours per day was associated with no clinically important effect on quality of life, breathlessness or the 6 minute walk test. A clinically important benefit (also consistent with clinical harm due to wide confidence intervals) was observed with regard to the number of hospitalisations. The committee discussed the risks and harms associated with oxygen therapy, which included the potential of significant anxiety for the patient caused by the noisy and imposing equipment involved. The potential risk of combustion for people in unsatisfactory living conditions was also acknowledged, that is, people who smoke or live with others who smoke The committee also discussed the possibility of high oxygen levels to further damage heart tissue as a potential harm of oxygen therapy.The committee agreed that the provision of oxygen should be based on a holistic needs assessment and would be very specific to each individual. Oxygen therapy would not be withheld from a person where a potential benefit was identified or where significant relief of breathlessness had been observed, however, the routine prescription of oxygen was not necessary for people with advanced heart failure. Trade-off between net clinical effects and costs No previously published economic evaluations were identified for this review. 