Critical care

Critical care provides support for patients whose conditions are potentially life-threatening.

These patients need constant and close monitoring, support for their organ systems from specific equipment and Medication to keep the body functioning normally while they recover.

Critical care deals with a wide range of conditions, but typically patients will have problems with one or more of their organ systems – particularly their lungs (respiratory) and heart (cardiac).

In Southampton...

Southampton General Hospital has four intensive care wards:

• General Intensive Care Unit (ICU)
• Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (CICU)
• Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU)
• Neuro Intensive Care Unit (NICU)

The Trust also has two high dependency wards, for less seriously ill patients than intensive care:

• Surgical High Dependency Unit
• Medical High Dependency Unit

There are also several other departments that come under critical care. These provide emergency or critical care services to other hospital departments and are invaluable in the care of seriously ill patients at the Trust:

• Acute pain team
• Outreach team
• Resuscitation team
• Anaesthetic department

Click on the links to find out more about each department.

Saving lives

The department delivers excellent outcomes.

The latest national data shows that survival rates for patients treated in the General Intensive Care Unit are five per cent higher than other comparable units in the country.

The survival rates for the Resuscitation Team are also significantly better than those achieved in other hospitals.

Ongoing education

Critical care is a highly specialised area of work, where staff are trained to react quickly and use state-of-the-art equipment to care for very ill patients.

The department has a rigorous training scheme – both for its own staff, and for the rest of the Trust's healthcare professionals.

All medical staff who join critical care follow a specially-designed induction programme, which involves being mentored, on-the-job training and several weeks of study. Other staff undergo regular updates to keep their skills at the forefront of current practice.

For other staff within the Trust, Critical care provides a range of study days, courses and individual tuition sessions to further their expertise in acute care.

The aim is to ensure staff across the organisation are trained to spot and react to a deteriorating patient early.

This increases the patient's chances of making a good recovery – and can prevent them having to receive emergency or intensive treatment.