Jump to content

Search the hub

Showing results for tags 'ICU/ ITU/ HDU'.

More search options

  • Search By Tags

    Start to type the tag you want to use, then select from the list.

  • Search By Author

Content Type


Forums

  • All
    • Commissioning, service provision and innovation in health and care
    • Coronavirus (COVID-19)
    • Culture
    • Digital health and care service provision
    • Improving patient safety
    • Investigations, risk management and legal issues
    • Leadership for patient safety
    • Organisations linked to patient safety (UK and beyond)
    • Patient engagement
    • Patient safety in health and care
    • Patient Safety Learning
    • Professionalising patient safety
    • Research, data and insight
    • Miscellaneous

Categories

  • Commissioning, service provision and innovation in health and care
    • Commissioning and funding patient safety
    • Health records and plans
    • Innovation programmes in health and care
    • Climate change/sustainability
  • Coronavirus (COVID-19)
    • Blogs
    • Data, research and statistics
    • Frontline insights during the pandemic
    • Good practice and useful resources
    • Guidance
    • Mental health
    • Exit strategies
    • Patient recovery
    • Questions around Government governance
  • Culture
    • Bullying and fear
    • Good practice
    • Occupational health and safety
    • Safety culture programmes
    • Second victim
    • Speak Up Guardians
    • Staff safety
    • Whistle blowing
  • Digital health and care service provision
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Apps for health and care
    • Teleservices
    • Other health and care software
    • Digital health regulatory bodies/standards/guidance
  • Improving patient safety
    • Clinical governance and audits
    • Design for safety
    • Disasters averted/near misses
    • Equipment and facilities
    • Error traps
    • Health inequalities
    • Human factors (improving human performance in care delivery)
    • Improving systems of care
    • Implementation of improvements
    • International development and humanitarian
    • Patient Safety Alerts
    • Safety stories
    • Stories from the front line
    • Transformative Simulation
    • Workforce and resources
  • Investigations, risk management and legal issues
    • Investigations and complaints
    • Risk management and legal issues
  • Leadership for patient safety
    • Business case for patient safety
    • Boards
    • Clinical leadership
    • Exec teams
    • Inquiries
    • International reports
    • National/Governmental
    • Patient Safety Commissioner
    • Quality and safety reports
    • Techniques
    • Other
  • Organisations linked to patient safety (UK and beyond)
    • Government and ALB direction and guidance
    • International patient safety
    • Regulators and their regulations
  • Patient engagement
    • Consent and privacy
    • Harmed care patient pathways/post-incident pathways
    • How to engage for patient safety
    • Keeping patients safe
    • Patient-centred care
    • Patient Safety Partners
    • Patient stories
  • Patient safety in health and care
    • Care settings
    • Conditions
    • Diagnosis
    • High risk areas
    • Learning disabilities
    • Medication
    • Mental health
    • Men's health
    • Patient management
    • Social care
    • Transitions of care
    • Women's health
  • Patient Safety Learning
    • Patient Safety Learning documents
    • Patient Safety Standards
    • 2-minute Tuesdays
    • Patient Safety Learning Annual Conference 2019
    • Patient Safety Learning Annual Conference 2018
    • Patient Safety Learning Awards 2019
    • Patient Safety Learning Interviews
    • Patient Safety Learning webinars
  • Professionalising patient safety
    • Accreditation for patient safety
    • Competency framework
    • Medical students
    • Patient safety standards
    • Training & education
  • Research, data and insight
  • Miscellaneous

News

  • News

Find results in...

Find results that contain...


Date Created

  • Start
    End

Last updated

  • Start
    End

Filter by number of...

Joined

  • Start

    End

Group

First name

Last name

Country

About me

Organisation

Role

Found 134 results
  1. Content Article
    Traditional paediatric intensive care unit (ICU) care has meant keeping young patients immobilised by sedation, which allows them to rest and ease their pain and suffering. However, for patients who recover, this practice can often leave them physiologically dependent on opioids and benzodiazepines, with disturbed sleep, increased delirium, and physical atrophy. And this practice fails to allow dying patients meaningful interaction with their loved ones. PICU Up! was developed at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center in the US over a 2-year period of methodical protocol implementation and review, including pre- and post-launch testing by caregivers in every clinical discipline across the PICU. Study results demonstrated that a bundled intervention to create a healing environment in the PICU with structured activity is safe, feasible, and may have benefits for short- and long-term outcomes of critically ill children. It has since been successfully adapted at 200+ hospitals globally and implemented directly at 25+ children's hospitals nationwide.
  2. Event
    The guest for this LFE community call will be Dr Sapna Kudchadkar - an inspirational colleague from the US. Sapna has led a number of excellent initiatives, most notably the "PICU UP" programme (PICU Up! An AMP Program) - a project which aims to improve patient outcomes through early mobilisation in intensive care. Sapna's approach to change management is refreshing and energising. Register
  3. News Article
    The care of a five-year-old boy who died at a specialist hospital “did not meet the standards expected”, an external review has said. A report by consultancy Niche raises concerns about the treatment of Ayaan Haroon, who died at Sheffield Children’s Hospital in March 2023 after being admitted with a lower respiratory tract infection eight days earlier. He had a history of breathing difficulties and had been hospitalised five times throughout his life for respiratory illnesses. He died in paediatric intensive care (PICU) from overwhelming disseminated adenovirus bronchopneumonia. Concerns include a 12-hour delay in starting specialist oxygen therapy; delays in escalation to PICU, which may have “marginally” increased chances of survival; failure to respond to blood results showing significant deterioration; “weak” governance structures; and “substantially inadequate” bereavement support. However, the report suggests these were unlikely to change the outcome. The review team also said: ”[The child’s] end of life care and the family’s experience did not meet the standards expected, or aspired to, by the trust.” And they criticised record-keeping, warning the “practice of not recording names, dates and times… would not stand up to legal and professional scrutiny”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 1 May 2026
  4. Content Article
    The Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine have developed this guidance in response to recurrent safety incidents concerning the connection and reconnection of both invasive and non-invasive breathing circuits. This was created to act as a resource to help in the design of local guidance and visual aids and is intended to be easily adaptable for use by individual units. It was subsequently recommended for this purpose in NHS England's National patient safety alert – risk associated with adult breathing circuits lacking a patent exhalation route, published on the 11 December 2025.
  5. Content Article
    This national patient safety alert has been issued by the NHS England National Patient Safety team, in collaboration with the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine. The alert is directed at organisations caring for patients on invasive and non-invasive breathing circuits who are required to develop local guidance and visual aids for circuit assembly, implement training on specific safety checks, and establish clear communication processes. All actions should be completed by 12 June 2026. This alert has been issued in response to the risk of harm from incorrectly assembled breathing circuits lacking proper exhalation routes for patients receiving invasive or non-invasive ventilatory support. A review by the of the national patient safety databases over a 3-year period identified 102 safety incidents describing the absence of an exhalation route because of incorrect assembly or selection of equipment. As a result the patient could not effectively exhale. 2 patients were reported as peri-arrest when exhalation routes were missed from their breathing circuits. In multiple reports describing the physiological deterioration of a patient, the potential for serious harm was mitigated when staff placed the missing exhalation port into the circuit. Actions required Organisations should identify a clinical lead and form a working group to develop local guidance and visual aids for the assembly, connection and reconnection of breathing circuits. The guidance and associated training must include the following recommendations: 1) Before connection to the patient, check the breathing circuit includes an exhalation route, and that there are no obstructions within the circuit 2) Perform the following checks when there is any change in the configuration of any breathing circuit: observe the patient, checking chest movement (inspiration and expiration), to ensure patient is ventilating normally, and check flow, volume, pressure, saturations and capnography. ensure alarm parameters and volume are set appropriately. ensure expiratory vents, ports or valves on NIV masks are not occluded. Organisations should: 3) Ensure the clinical lead (or deputy) oversees any revision to the local guidance 4) Establish a clear process to ensure all updates to the guidance, checklists or visual aids are communicated to all relevant team members 5) Establish a clear process for communicating any urgent changes to local guidance and practice when, for example, a supply chain disruption means standard consumables are unavailable and replacements are provided. The Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine (FICM) has published a resource to help in the designing of local guidance and visual aids to support the safe set up of invasive and non-invasive breathing circuits. This can be used as a template for organisations to produce local guidance.
  6. Content Article
    Nurses in intensive care units often work long shifts, leading to significant physical and mental strain. This strain can negatively impact their well-being and the quality of care they provide to patients. The aim of this systematic review was to evaluate the associations between nurses’ working hours in intensive care units and outcomes related to risk identification, nurse well-being, patient safety, and institutional performance. The review highlights the importance of addressing the risks associated with long working hours in intensive care units. The primary risks identified include nurse-focused issues such as the development of sleep disturbances and increased burnout, as well as patient-focused risks like medication errors. These risks, along with their frequency and impact, underscore the need for improved scheduling and working conditions to ensure patient safety and nurse well-being.
  7. Event
    until
    Register
  8. Content Article
    This study in Intensive and Critical Care Nursing examined the association between safety attitudes, quality of care, missed care, nurse staffing levels and the rate of healthcare-associated infection (HAI) in adult intensive care units (ICUs). The authors concluded that positive safety culture and better nurse staffing levels can lower the rates of HAIs in ICUs. Improvements to nurse staffing will reduce nursing workloads, which may reduce missed care, increase job satisfaction, and, ultimately, reduce HAIs. Key findings ICUs with strong job satisfaction had lower incidence and nurse-reported frequency of CLABSI, CAUTI, and VAP. Missed care was common, with 73.11% of nurses reporting missing at least one required care activity on their last shift. The mean patient-to-nurse ratio was 1.95. Increased missed care and higher workload were associated with higher HAIs. Nurses’ perceptions of CLABSI and VAP frequency were positively associated with the actual occurrence of CLABSI and VAP in participating units.
  9. Content Article
    NHS urgent and emergency care is under intolerable strain. This strain is increasingly causing harm to patients. Timely and high quality patient care is often not being delivered due to overcrowding driven by workforce and capacity constraints. While the covid-19 pandemic has accentuated and arguably expedited the crisis; the spiral of decline in urgent and emergency care has been decades long and unless urgent action is taken, we may not yet have reached its nadir, writes Tim Cooksley and colleagues in this BMJ opinion article.
  10. Content Article
    Inconsistent and poorly coordinated systems of tracheostomy care commonly result in frustrations, delays, and harm. The Safer Tracheostomy Care in Adults bundle was a programme of 18 interventions implemented across 20 hospitals in England between August 2016 and January 2018. These interventions were designed to improve the quality and safety of care for patients who have had tracheostomies. This evaluation report outlines why the interventions were needed and assesses their impact, including an estimated reduction in total hospital length of stay per tracheostomy admission of 33.02 days, corresponding to a potential reduction of over £27,000 per admission. Hospitals that implemented the Safer Tracheostomy Care initiative interventions saw improvements across a number of quality, safety and efficiency for patients who had tracheostomies, these improvements included: reduced length of stay in hospital reduced incident severity reductions in anxiety and depression. The level of these improvements varied across hospitals, as did the type of interventions implemented. The hospitals also had different characteristics and populations which they served.
  11. News Article
    While most babies born more than two months prematurely now survive thanks to medical advances, little progress has been made in the past two decades in preventing associated developmental problems, an expert review has found. The review also found that very preterm babies can have their brain development disrupted by environmental factors in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), including nutrition, pain, stress and parenting behaviours. A review conducted by experts from the Children’s Hospital of Orange County in the US and the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health at Monash University in Australia found that while these neurodevelopmental problems can be related to brain injury during gestation or due to cardiac and respiratory issues in the first week of life, the environment of the NICU is also critical. To improve outcomes for very preterm babies, the review recommended family based interventions that reduce parental stress during gestation, more research into rehabilitation in intensive care and in the early months of life, and greater understanding of the role of environment and parenting after birth. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 3 August 2023
  12. News Article
    Whistleblower Dr Chris Day has won the right to appeal when a a Deputy High Court Judge Andrew Burns of the Employment Appeal Tribunal granted permission to appeal the November 2022 decision of the London South Employment Tribunal on six out of ten grounds at a hearing in London. The saga which has now being going on for almost ten years began when Dr Day raised patient safety issues in intensive care unit at Woolwich Hospital in London. The Judge said today this was of the “utmost seriousness” and were linked to two avoidable deaths but their status as reasonable beliefs were contested by the NHS for 4 years using public money. In a series of twists and turns at various tribunals investigating his claims Dr Day has been vilified by the trust not only in court but in a press release sent out by the trust and correspondence with four neighbouring trust chief executives and the head of NHS England, Dr Amanda Pritchard and local MPs. This specific hearing followed a judgement in favour of the trust by employment judge Anne Martin at a hearing which revealed that David Cocke, a director of communications at the trust, who was due to be a witness but never turned up, destroyed 90,000 emails overnight during the hearing. A huge amount of evidence and correspondence that should have been released to Dr Day was suddenly discovered. The new evidence showed that the trust’s chief executive, Ben Travis, had misled the tribunal when he said that a board meeting which discussed Dr Day’s case did not exist and that he had not informed any other chief executive about the case other than the documents that were eventually disclosed to the court. Read full story Source: Westminster Confidential, 26 February 2024
  13. Event
    until
    The Safe Anaesthesia Liaison Group Patient Safety Conference will be held in collaboration with RA-UK. The first session will include engaging lectures around the current work of SALG, and the second session will focus on topical issues in relation to regional anaesthesia safety. There will be a prize session for accepted abstracts, with a poster section and oral presentations. This online conference is being organised by SALG co-chairs, Dr Peter Young from the Association of Anaesthetists, Dr Felicity Platt, Royal College of Anaesthetists and Nat Haslam, Regional Anaesthesia UK The day will provide valuable knowledge for doctors engaged in clinical anaesthesia, pain management and intensive care medicine, and who have an interest in improving patient safety. Register
  14. Event
    until
    This Webinar hosted by Hamilton Medical, will focus on the clinical use of intelligent ventilation software. Agenda Intro from Chair Luigi Camporata Presentation from Prof. Giorgio A. Iotti : “ The birth and growth of the visionary idea” Presentation from Laura Buiteman-Kruizinga: “Lung protective ventilation in the time of COVID-19” Followed by a Q&A Register for the webinar
  15. News Article
    The most comprehensive picture so far of how covid’s second wave has hit the NHS in the north of England is revealed in new figures obtained by HSJ. The latest data confirms that parts of the North West region now have more coronavirus patients in hospital beds than they did in the spring. It comes amid intense public debate about the best way to fight covid, and whether or not it is close to swamping the NHS. Collected from local NHS sources in a joint HSJ and Independent investigation, the information shows for example that: Lancashire and South Cumbria had 544 confirmed covid hospital patients yesterday (around 15-18% of the bed base), about 20 more than during the April peak. Liverpool University Hospitals – which remains the most severely affected trust – had 408 confirmed covid patients yesterday (20-25% of bed base), whereas it never topped 400 in the spring. The data is sent routinely by trusts to NHS England but most of it is not published – something some politicians are now calling for. As of yesterday, there were nearly 6,100 confirmed-covid patients across England, about 650 of whom were in critical care, and 560 receiving mechanical ventilation, according to information shared with HSJ. The number of “unoccupied” hospital beds is much lower now than in the spring, when they were cleared out in anticipation of a major hit. In the North West, up to 5,500 acute beds were reported as “unoccupied” in the spring, whereas the figure now is about 2,500 (around 14-18% of the bed base). However, critical care is the major pinch point in the most affected areas, with nearly half of the mechanical ventilation beds open at Liverpool’s hospitals (29 of 62) occupied by confirmed covid patients; and a third of those across the North West (178 of 556). However, hospitals in the area have opened very few extra critical care “surge” beds so far. The total numbers of mechanical ventilation (a subset of critical care) beds open in LUH and the rest of the region has not increased much in recent weeks, and falls well short of what they have declared they could open as potential surge capacity, if they cancelled large amounts of non-urgent care and reorganised staffing and wards. Read full story Source: HSJ, 23 October 2020
  16. News Article
    New data has shown the number of coronavirus patients being admitted to hospital and intensive care units across the country has risen as lockdown rules are set to be eased further on Monday. The Public Health England (PHE) data, published on Friday, covers 134 NHS trusts across the country and shows the daily rate of new patients admitted to hospital and critical care with COVID-19 has risen compared to recent weeks, with London experiencing a sharp spike in new admissions in the past week. The south east region also saw an increase. The surveillance data on the spread of COVID-19 throughout England has also revealed an increase in the number of people testing positive at their GP. Read full story Source: Independent, 31 May 2020
  17. Content Article
    In conditions of intensive therapy, where the patients treated are in a critical condition, alarms are omnipresent. Nurses, as they spend most of their time with patients, monitoring their condition 24 h, are particularly exposed to so-called alarm fatigue. The purpose of this study from Lewandowska et al. is to review the literature available on the perception of clinical alarms by nursing personnel and its impact on work in the ICU environment.
  18. Content Article
    Guidance from the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine and Intensive Care Society on prone positioning in adult critical care. It is hoped that the adoption of the guidance set out within this document will help improve safety and reduce complications associated with the prone positioning of mechanically ventilated patients. This document also hopes to standardise the approach to manging a cardiac arrest in the prone position, and has some guidance on prone ventilation in ECMO patients as well as considerations for performing bronchoscopy in the prone position. Assuming adequate staffing and equipment is available, the intervention of prone positioning involves very low costs and provided additional patient complications and long-term injuries to staff do not occur, would almost certainly be a cost-effective intervention.
  19. Content Article
    Newborn babies may need extra care in a neonatal intensive care unit or special care baby unit if they were born prematurely or if they need care for a particular health condition. Babies and infants that need long-term care can be transferred to a local unit or discharged to receive care at home. A baby with complex health needs may move between distinct areas of care or 'pathways'. This Care Quality Commission (CQC) review looked at how risks for newborn babies are identified and managed and at the care for infants in the community who need respiratory support. This review draws on one particular case that had a tragic outcome for a baby and her parents. Elizabeth Dixon was born prematurely but suffered brain damage as a result of missed high blood pressure. She died shortly before her first birthday in 2001, when there was a failure to correctly maintain her tracheostomy tube. While this review was not an investigation of the specific circumstances of Elizabeth's case, it drew on this to examine current practice, systems and guidance.
  20. Content Article
    More information about "COVID-19 Critical Care: Understanding and Application (Future Learn)"
    This learning resource has been designed for frontline clinical staff who are caring for critically ill patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes a wide range of healthcare professionals in acute care, from many different clinical speciality backgrounds. You may have some previous critical care experience or none. The information in this resource will support those refreshing critical care knowledge and skills, newly qualified doctors, those who are upskilling, and those returning to acute clinical services during the COVID-19 pandemic. By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to: Apply the current and evolving principles of personal protective equipment (PPE) in the care of COVID-19 patients. Apply evidence-based principles of advanced organ support and monitoring to the COVID-19 critically ill patient. Apply evidence-based daily practices to care of the critically ill patient. Develop a range of specialised self-caring practices Reflect critically on the complex elements required to achieve both self-awareness and self-compassion in a high-tension environment.
  21. News Article
    Delirium and confusion may be common among some seriously-ill hospital patients with COVID-19, a study in The Lancet suggests. Long stays in intensive care and being ventilated are thought to increase the risk, the researchers say. Doctors should look out for depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after recovery, although most patients, particularly those with mild symptoms, will not be affected by mental health problems. The evidence is based on studies of patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) and Middle-East respiratory syndrome (Mers), as well early data on COVID-19 patients. Read full story Source: BBC News, 19 May 2020
  22. News Article
    Restarting NHS services will be an even greater challenge than coping with the first coronavirus infections, health think tanks and hospital chiefs have warned. Since March, the NHS has freed up more than 33,000 beds to prepare for an influx of COVID-19 patients needing intensive care, but since the peak of infection health chiefs have worried that delays to care were harming patients. Around 46,000 so-called excess deaths have been recorded during the pandemic, as compared against a five-year average. Around a quarter of these are believed to be unrelated to COVID-19. In a joint statement, the Health Foundation, Nuffield Trust and King’s Fund think tanks have said it could take months before the NHS and social care are able to fully restart. All three bodies will be giving evidence to the Commons health committee on Thursday, where they will warn about the impact on the health service’s “exhausted staff” and demand action to help care homes – which are now at the frontline in the fight against coronavirus. The experts will stress the need for the NHS to begin planning for a second peak of infections, especially if it comes in winter – when the service is usually overwhelmed by seasonal flu. They will warn about concerns over how the NHS manages the risk of infection, with the need for more protective equipment, social distancing and increased testing. This will “severely limit capacity for many months”, they said. Read full story Soruce: The Independent, 14 May 2020
  23. News Article
    Doctors, nurses and paramedics have been given conflicting advice about when to start resuscitation for coronavirus patients, amid fears the procedure could put them at risk of infection. While Public Health England has said it does not believe CPR creates a risk, the UK’s Resuscitation Council – which is responsible for setting standards for resuscitation in the NHS – has said it believes there is a risk and staff should wear full equipment. The Independent has seen several examples of different messages being sent out to hospital staff and ambulance workers, and some NHS trusts were forced to change their guidance within a matter of days after PHE changed its stance. One set of guidance could mean a delay in starting CPR for patients while staff put on protective equipment, while the other means staff could be at risk of being infected with coronavirus. Ken Spearpoint, a former consultant nurse and resuscitation officer at Imperial College Healthcare Trust, said the situation had led to confusion and created an “ethical dilemma” for some staff who were being forced to choose between the Resus UK’s position and their trust’s guidance. Read full story Source: The Independent, 6 April 2020
  24. News Article
    Details of a massive ramp-up in intensive care beds have been circulated to NHS bosses in London, amid concerns from national leaders that they are four days away from full capacity. In a call with local leaders, the NHS’ national director for mental health, Claire Murdoch, spoke about the intense pressures facing the acute system due to the coronavirus outbreak. According to several people on the call, she said London “runs out of [ICU] beds in four days” if urgent action is not taken. She also warned the need for intensive care beds will now double every three days, the sources said. The capital’s hospitals are frantically planning to try to quadruple their “surge capacity” in intensive care over the next fortnight, from around 1,000 surge beds over the weekend just passed, to more than 4,000 in two weeks’ time. Read full story Source: HSJ, 24 March 2020
  25. News Article
    New guidelines have been published to help doctors and nurses decide how to prioritise patients during the coronavirus pandemic. The advice from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) was produced amid concerns that the NHS would be overwhelmed by the demand for intensive care beds and ventilators. The three new NICE guidelines, which have been drawn up within a week rather than the usual timescale of up to two years, cover patients needing critical care, kidney dialysis and cancer treatment. They say all patients admitted to hospital should still be assessed as usual for frailty “irrespective of Covid-19 status”. Decisions about admitting patients to critical care should consider how likely they are to recover, taking into account the likelihood of recovery “to an outcome that is acceptable to them”. Doctors are advised to discuss possible “do not resuscitate” decisions with adults who are assessed as having increased frailty, such as those who need help with outside activities or are dependent for personal care. Read full story Source: Independent, 22 March 2020

© 2026 Patient Safety Learning. All rights reserved.

Patient Safety Learning is registered as a charity with the Charity Commission Registration number 1180689.

×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.