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Showing results for tags 'HDU / ICU'.
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Coronavirus: Survival rate of intensive care patients improving, data suggests
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
As hospitalisations and intensive care admissions surge around the country, new figures indicate coronavirus patients in critical care have a better survival rate now than when the pandemic first began. The latest report from The Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre (ICNARC) into critical care for England, Wales and Northern Ireland looks at patients admitted to intensive care up until 31 August and those admitted from 1 September. The data shows that on average, 39% of critical care coronavirus patients died up until the end of August while less than 12% have died since September. The proportion of patients who died after being admitted to critical care fell by almost a quarter from the peak and as much as half in hospitals overall. However, the Dean of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine, Dr Alison Pittard, told the BBC that the difference may be attributed to an insufficient amount of time having passed which impedes an accurate and longterm patient assessment, as some remain in hospital. Meanwhile, scientific advisors continue to warn that the next few weeks are critical for regulating hospital admissions. Read full story Source: The Independent, 18 October 2020 -
News Article
Liverpool intensive care units '90% full' as city braces for second wave
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Intensive care units in Liverpool’s hospitals are more than 90% full, according to a local health leader, as the city braces for a second wave of COVID-19 infections. Councillor Paul Brant, cabinet member for adult health and social care at Liverpool City Council, warned that hospital services were once again being forced to care for patients critically ill with coronavirus. "Our intensive, critical care beds are filling up very fast,” he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "The most recent figures I've seen suggest they are over 90 per cent full and our acute hospital trusts have occupancy levels of Covid-positive patients of over 250. At the current rate of increase, we would expect Liverpool to surpass the peak of the first wave probably within the next seven to 10 days." Addressing the intensive care situation, he added: "They are not all Covid patients, I should say, but they are running very full and they are running with an increasing number of people who are Covid-positive." He added: "It has become clear that the intensity of the demand on hospital services here in Liverpool is crowding out anything other than dealing with Covid." Read full story Source: The Independent, 14 October 2020 -
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Covid ICU survivor: 'I have come out the other end'
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Covid survivor Tam McCue is one of the lucky ones. Earlier in the year he was in intensive care in the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley where he had been on a ventilator for nearly two weeks. At one point Mr McCue, who could barely speak, didn't think he would live. Fast forward five months and Mr McCue, of Barrhead, East Renfrewshire, is back from the brink. He became desperately ill but, thankfully, it only went as far as his lungs. With coronavirus some patients have have suffered multiple organ failure which also affected their heart, kidneys, brain and gut. Mr McCue describes his recovery as a "rollercoaster". He added: "It's a slow process. You think you can do things then the tiredness and fatigue sets in." He said: "It lies in the back of your mind. As years go on, how are you going to be? Is it going to get you again? It does play on you. It definitely does." As part of his recovery Mr McCue is attending the Ins:pire clinic online. It is normally a face-to-face rehabilitation clinic which involves multiple specialties, including pharmacists, physiotherapists and psychologists. Mr McCue is one of the first Covid survivors to take part in the five-week programme, which started earlier this month. Read full story Source: BBC Scotland News, 29 September 2020 -
News ArticleHospitals have been warned hundreds of ventilators used to keep sedated patients alive are at risk of suddenly shutting down because of a fault, in some cases without warning. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, which said there were approximately 303 Philips Respironics V60 ventilators used in the UK, has warned hospitals over a delay in replacement parts arriving in the UK to fix the problem. It has issued a safety alert to hospitals to make them aware of the increased risk. The regulator said it had received one report of a ventilator suddenly shutting down but said there was no report of any injury to patients. Read full story Source: The Independent, 23 September 2020
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Community PostDuring the COVID pandemic, it was clear that Emergency Departments across the UK needed to adapt and quickly, with my trust not exempt from this. We have increased capacity, increased our nursing and doctors on the shop floor, obviously with nurse in charge being responsible for all areas. We have different admission wards in terms of symptoms that the patient has, but also have a different type of flow, which i am getting my head around to be able to share I have seen departments split into 2 and various other ideas coming out from various trusts. Which got me thinking about patient safety and how well this is managed. So.... How is your department responding to the pandemic? Do you have any patient safety initiatives as a result of the response? Is there a long term plan? The reason why i am asking this, is so we can share practice and identify individual trust responses.
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ICS Workforce Wellbeing Webinar Series
Patient Safety Learning posted a calendar event in Community Calendar
untilFrom debrief to safe story sharing. The word “debrief” is throughout our language in healthcare settings, yet it is considered controversial and potentially unsafe if in the wrong hand. However we know in the providing the critical care that our ICU workforce needs, the chance to make sense of experience and share stories is important. This webinar explores the different methodologies for doing this safely in your unit. This webinar from the Intensive Care Society will consist of presentations and then a panel discussion with questions from the audience. Further information and registration -
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Italy's medical workers: 'We became heroes but they've already forgotten us'
Clive Flashman posted a news article in News
"I'm not sure I want to be a nurse anymore," she tells me. "I've seen more people die in the past two months than in the whole six years." Some 70% of health workers dealing with COVID-19 in Italy's hardest-hit areas are suffering from burnout, a recent study shows. "This is actually the hardest moment for doctors and nurses," says Serena Barello, the author of the study. Read story Source: BBC News, 26 May 2020 -
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Recovery concerns as most ICUs still well above normal capacity
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Dozens of intensive care units are still running well over their normal capacity – in some cases more than double – weeks after the peak of demand, figures seen by HSJ reveal. It contrasts with the picture painted at some government coronavirus press conferences that there is huge “spare capacity” in critical care and has been throughout the outbreak, with Downing Street charts putting England-wide occupancy at around 20% currently. The government’s assertions include the additional “surge” capacity which was hurriedly established at the start of the outbreak. But intensive care staff have been frustrated by this being labelled spare capacity, when the number of patients being treated is still well above normal levels. In addition, the ongoing reliance on keeping surge beds open – with ICUs still spilling over other spaces and calling on staff and equipment from other services – will limit hospitals’ ability to resume normal care, such as planned surgery. Steve Mathieu, a consultant in intensive care medicine in the south of England, said: “The majority of ICUs will currently be operating at over 100 per cent capacity and typically somewhere around 130-150 per cent, although there is significant regional variation". “There are uncertainties whether this will now represent the ‘new normal’ for the foreseeable future and there is a national need to plan for further potential surges in activity requiring more critical care demand." Read full story Source: HSJ, 21 May 2020 -
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ICU Steps: Patient and relative experiences of critical illness
Claire Cox posted an article in Patient stories
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ICUs advised how to improve staffing ratios as covid pressure eases
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Intensive care units (ICU) will be advised how to improve their staffing-to-patient ratios shortly as the number of patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 falls across the country. In expectation that the pandemic would put intense pressures on ICUs, staff ratios were relaxed. NHS England told trusts to base their staffing models on one critical care nurse for every six ICU patients, supported by two non-specialist nurses, and one senior ICU clinician for every 30 patients, supported by two middle-grade doctors. Before the pandemic, guidance from the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine recommended a ratio of one non-specialist nurse per patient. For senior clinicians the ratio was 1:10 New guidance, expected as early as next week, will encourage trusts to reduce the number of patients per ICU specialist nurses and senior clinicians on a localised basis as part of “transitional arrangements” aimed at moving staffing models back towards normal standards of care, HSJ has been told. The new guidance, drawn up by NHS England, the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine and the British Association of Critical Care Nurses, will give trusts recommended staffing ratios based on the occupancy rates of their ICUs. It will tell trusts the existing ratios should be applied if their ICUs are running at four times their normal capacity. For ICUs running at double capacity, this ratio would be reduced to 1:2 for ICU nurses, and 1:15 for senior clinicians. Read full story Source: HSJ, 8 May 2020 -
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Intensive care capacity must be permanently doubled, says Nightingale chief
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Intensive care capacity in London must be doubled on a permanent basis following the coronavirus pandemic, according to the chief executive of the city’s temporary Nightingale hospital. Speaking to an online webinar hosted by the Royal Society of Medicine, Professor Charles Knight said London had around 800 critical care beds under normal operations but “there’s a clear plan to double intensive care unit capacity on a permanent basis”. He added: “We must have a system of healthcare in this country that means, if this ever happened again, that we wouldn’t have to do this, that we wouldn’t have to build an intensive care unit in a conference centre because we had enough capacity under usual operating so that we could cope with surge.” It would also mean the NHS would no longer be in a position “where lots of patients, as we all know, get cancelled every year for lack of an ITU bed,” he said. Read full story Source: HSJ, 28 April 2020 -
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Hospitals hit by drug shortages for coronavirus victims in intensive care wards
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Intensive care units across the country are running out of essentials, including anaesthetics and drugs for anxiety and blood pressure, after a “tripling of demand” sparked by the coronavirus pandemic. Six senior NHS doctors working on the front line, and drugs industry sources, say that the health service is running out of at least eight crucial drugs. Hospitals in London, Birmingham and the northwest of England have been especially badly hit. Doctors said they were being forced to use alternatives to their “drug of choice”, affecting the quality of care being provided to COVID-19 patients. They also warned that some second-choice drugs might be triggering dangerous side effects such as minor heart attacks. Ron Daniels, an intensive care consultant in the West Midlands, said the shortages had become “acute” already. “We don’t know what we’re going to run out of next week,” he said. “Safety isn’t so much the issue — it’s quality. It may be that we’re subjecting people to longer periods of ventilation than we would normally because the drugs take longer to wear off.” Daniels added that some of the “second-line drugs” being used might be challenging to a patient’s heart: “We might be causing small heart attacks or subclinical heart attacks.” Ravi Mahajan, president of the Royal College of Anaesthetists, said work was being carried out to “preserve” key drugs for those most in need. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 26 April 2020 -
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UK doctor invents digital flashcards to help COVID-19 patients understand staff
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
A coronavirus patient’s terrifying hospital experience inspired an NHS doctor to create a flashcard system to improve communication with medical staff wearing face masks. Anaesthetist Rachael Grimaldi founded CARDMEDIC while on maternity leave after reading about a COVID-19 patient who was unable to understand healthcare workers through their personal protective equipment (PPE). Her system enables medical staff to ask critically ill or deaf coronavirus patients important questions and share vital information on digital flashcards displayed on a phone, tablet or computer. The idea went from concept to launch on 1 April in just 72 hours and is now being used by NHS trusts and hospitals in 50 countries across the world. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 25 April 2020 Read the 'Story behind CARDMEDIC', written by Rachael for the hub -
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