NCEPOD is undertaking a new study to identify and explore remediable factors in the process of care in the peri-operative management of surgical patients with diabetes. They are looking for ICS members to apply to be case note reviewers. Continue reading “ICS Members wanted as Case Note Reviewers: NCEPOD study on “Peri-operative management of surgical patients with diabetes” DEADLINE CLOSING SOON”
The Non Medical Workforce Survey was undertaken in the autumn of 2015 following a request from the Clinical Reference Group for Adult Critical Care. It was the first time that a national survey has been undertaken to gather data from non- medical staff working within the speciality of critical care. Continue reading “National Non-Medical Critical Care Workforce Survey”
Continuing with our theme on burnout Professor Peter Brindley, Honorary ICS Senior Travelling Fellow, talks about how a trip to India acted as a “breathing space” away from a demanding career and “clinical nonsense”. The ten lessons he learnt are pointers to us all.
Continue reading “The Doctor is NOT in. He is on sabbatical; what about you.”
by Jeremy Groves, Consultant Anaesthetist in Intensive Care
I’ve just been looking at the last Annual Report for the North Trent Critical Care Network and, if you look at the Network Units as a whole, the mortality rate is about 16%. This equates to over a thousand deaths. Now a death is not just a statistic. To the relatives left behind, and to carers, there can be significant trauma. This is true even for those with significant co-morbidity where death is always in the shadows. It makes bereavement care a real and important issue. Continue reading “Bereavement Care in UK ICUs: Time for a Change”
by Hugh Montgomery
You’re diving a deep wreck far from the European mainland with no access to a decompression chamber and before mobile telephones; what do you do if someone gets ‘the bends’ and is paralyzed? One option: ‘Put them over the side, and report a drowning accident.’ No-one (or so a bunch of young bloods thought) would want to live paralysed. Wind forward two years, and a spinal bend happens. The victim isn’t going over the side, and no-one is actually going to put him there. Continue reading “Informed Consent”
NCEPOD are recruiting a multi-disciplinary group of healthcare professionals with a working interest in Acute Heart Failure.
The primary aim will be to identify and explore avoidable and remediable factors in the process of care for patients admitted to hospital with acute heart failure. Continue reading “Case Reviewers Required for Acute Heart Failure Study”
by Craig Brown
I was speaking to a colleague recently who reflected that it appears we have been through the age of research, then came the age of standards and now we appear to be moving into “the age of innovation” in the NHS.
It was an interesting comment and perhaps picks up the zeitgeist where we have seen the development of “Quality Improvement” initiatives, sometimes on a local scale and sometimes on a regional or national level. The growth and expansion of Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs) supports this regional transformation through platforms for education, supporting system wide projects and attempting to link innovators with the appropriate clinicians. Continue reading “Are We Innovators?”
by Jeremy Groves, Consultant, Critical Care and Anaesthesia
I was helping out this morning with a bronchoscopy on a patient with a significant sputum load. My colleague Tim, who was supervising one of our trainees, Naomi, who was steering the scope, couldn’t see the wall mounted monitor. I commented that the patient’s ventilation was being compromised by the presence of the scope. Tim wanted to see what was going on and asked me to turn the monitor towards him. This I did and, with rather a large crash, a yelp from Naomi and a gasp of surprise from the rest of us, the monitor fell off the wall. Continue reading “Learning from Patient Safety Incidents”
The Intensive Care Society has a very active trainee committee and here they introduce themselves….
In 2013, the Cardiovascular Disease Outcomes Strategy (CVDOS), published by the Department of Health, highlighted that many lives could be saved if CPR and early defibrillation were instituted promptly, more often, and the whole pathway of care from successful resuscitation to subsequent rehabilitation were improved.
Recently, an OHCA steering group was convened Continue reading “Resuscitation to Recovery: A National Framework to improve care of people with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) in England”
