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Intensive Care

Critical care, also known as intensive care, is needed if someone is seriously ill with life-threatening conditions and requires intensive treatment and close monitoring. This is carried out in a ward called the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). These wards within the hospital are staffed with a multi-disciplinary healthcare team equipped and designed to closely monitor and treat patients with life-threatening conditions. Patients may need specialist treatment because one or more of their body systems, such as their heart, lung, or kidneys, are not working properly.

Because our patients are often very unwell, they will have much greater care needs than those patients being cared for on more general wards within the hospital. For this reason, each nurse will care for one patient only at a time and patients will be reviewed by different teams regularly.

 

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External Video: Max's story - Parents of organ donor meet the boy she saved - video

Parents of organ donor 'Keira' meet the boy 'Max' she saved.

Web Link: Medical records: how to access them

Some people want to see their medical notes, so that they can make sense of their care or treatment, and why they needed it.This link will take you to the NHS Choices website. It gives you information on how to get permission to look at your medical notes (including the forms you will need to fill in and whether you might have to pay a small fee).

Article: Medications on ICU

Medications Medications are an essential part of the care provided in the ICU. The amount and type of medicine (drugs) given to a patient will vary according to their condition and progress. ICU staff will explain your relative’s individual needs. Commonly patients will be given drugs to stop pain, as well as sedatives.

Web Link: Medicines explained

This link will take you to an NHS page explaining how 100s of different medications work, what they're for, how to take them and possible side-effects. It's not exhaustive, but we hope you find it helpful. 

Article: Money issues

What if I can't pay the bills? It can be stressful enough, worrying about a family member in Intensive Care, without the added stress of worrying about money and how you're going to pay the bills. This is especially true if your loved usually dealt with money issues, if either of you are self employed or you need to take a lot of time off work in order to visit him or her or to look after children. Can I get access to his or her bank account? You may need access to...

Article: Monitors

Every bed in the ICU has a monitor that will display what we call the patient's “vital signs”. These typically include the heart rate and rhythm (or ECG), blood pressure, oxygen levels (or “saturation”), respiratory (or breathing) pattern and fluid status (CVP or “central venous pressure”).The nurses will keep a constant eye on the monitor and will carefully record the vital signs in the patient's charts.The monitor has in built alarms that will...

Article: Nurse specialist : Post ICU recovery

What does the Specialist Nurse in Post ICU Recovery do? This speicalist nurse works with patients who are recovering from critical illness, to support them and their families along their recovery journey. The Post ICU recovery service at GSTT aims to support patients with their transition from ICU to the wards and then eventually home, to help reduce the burden problems that patients recovering from critical illness can commonly experience. There are three main aspects to the work...

Article: Nutrition on ICU

Nutrition – When a patient is connected to the ventilator or breathing machine with a breathing tube in their mouths, they will not be able to eat and drink. Being critically ill can increase the bodies need for energy and protein, so its important to give them food or nutrition in a different way. The most common way to feed patients in ICU is with liquid food through a feeding tube. A nasogastric tube (NGT) is a narrow tube that is placed through the nose into the stomach. It is...