Comprehensive Critical Care, published in 2000, recommended that Outreach services should be developed as an integral part of each NHS Trust’s critical care service. The aim of critical care outreach is to share critical care skills across the hospital and help ensure that all patients who are critically ill receive the required level of care irrespective of whether they make it into a designated critical care bed.

Each hospital with critical care facilities in the North Trent Critical Care Network has a Critical Care Outreach Service (implemented in year 2000). Each hospital has an early warning scoring system in place with the aim of identifying patients on general wards who have the potential to deteriorate and require critical care.

The outreach teams run a variety of courses including:

• ALERT
• Care of the Sick Ward Patient
• Tracheostomy study day
• Sepsis study day
• Corral signs

Please contact the teams for more details.