Critical care

The UCLH Critical Care Unit is one of the largest units in the country, providing a high standard of care for over 3000 patients per year. National intensive care audits have shown that our survival rates are among the highest in the country.

• The unit is supported by a multi-denominational chaplaincy department.
• A clinical psychologist is available via appointment to support patients and relatives. Please email uclh.criticalcarepsychology@nhs.net if you would like psychological support.
• There is a relatives’ room on the unit for daytime use and evenings up to 22:00. Advice is available for relatives regarding local accommodation if required.
• Patients are supported by our extensive multidisciplinary team including doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, pharmacists, a dietician and other members for the team.

• On leaving critical care patients will be referred to one of our specialist wards.
• The critical care outreach service routinely follows up patients who have been on the unit for two or more days and have recently moved to the wards.
• Patients who have stayed on the unit for three or more days will be invited to attend the critical care follow-up clinic as an outpatient. The clinic is attended by members of the Critical Care multi-disciplinary team including a Clinical Nurse Specialist. At the appointment, patients have the chance to ask questions about their critical care admission and obtain ongoing advice regarding their physical and mental health and wellbeing should they need it. The team can also help ensure that patients' are receiving the most appropriate support in the community to aid their recovery. Please note that any critical care patient may have an appointment should they wish to have one; please contact our department for further information.

Are you a former patient (or a relative or carer) of the critical care department at UCLH?

The critical care department has set up a group of former critical care patients, their families and staff.

The group is called C-PAG (Critical Care Patient Advisory Group) and it aims for patients to share their experiences of critical care and their road to recovery after being discharged.

Evidence shows that accessing support from peers who have been through similar challenges can increase resilience, wellbeing and reduce feelings of isolation.

The group is friendly, informal and welcoming of any former patient or their family at any stage of recovery. We hold an online C-PAG meeting every four weeks at 4pm on a Wednesday which lasts an hour; patients may like to come to every session or less regularly.

During some C-PAG meetings we also invite 'guest' members of the critical care team to answer questions about specific aspects of the critical care service. These sessions may last a bit longer than an hour.

In addition, we are keen to provide high quality patient care and to get feedback from patients about their experience so that they can tell us what we have done well and what we could do better. As a result, C-PAG also represents the ‘patient voice’ for key decisions made about the department and how it is run, this can mean that group members could be consulted about anything from picking the paint colours for a new ward to telling us about how the team can improve their communication.

If you would like to join C-PAG we would be delighted to hear from you. Contact Wendy Harris (Clinical Nurse Specialist) and Dr Janet Balabanovic (Critical Care Psychologist) by emailing uclh.criticalcarepeersupport@nhs.net for more information.