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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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Web Link: Guy's and St. Thomas' Palliative Care Service

Additional support from the hospital’s palliative care team will be offered as appropriate. Details are found here.

Article: Guy's Critical Care Unit (GCCU) - Guy's Hospital

Guys Critical Care Unit (GCCU)- This is the ICU at Guys Hospital on the 1st floor Tower wing and has 13 beds. Guy's hospital specialises in: Haematology (blood) - sickle cell disease and leukaemia and lymphomas (blood and lymphatic cancer) Oncology (cancer) Kidney failure, surgery and kidney transplants Specialist Surgery is performed: Lung (thoracic) Bladder/kidney Spine/bone (orthopaedic) Head and neck Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) The patients on this ICU will...

Article: Handover

The nurse will usually start the shift by hearing about the patient's progress since they came into Intensive Care and over the previous shift (handover). She or he will usually carry out a full assessment of the patient by checking their charts (including things like vital signs, blood results and medications), checking that all equipment is working as it should and carrying out a full body assessment (eg checking the patient's skin, including any wounds and dressings and...

Web Link: Support Organisations

Where to go for support There are a range of organisations that can help provide information and support to people who are personally affected by death, dying and bereavement: Before a death After a death Support for carers Advice for professionals

External Article: 'I woke up in ICU and didn't know what was real' Oliver's story

Animation graduate Oliver Pratt was just 20 when he fell severely ill with complications following Covid-19. This is his story.

Article: ICP monitoring

What is intracranial pressure (ICP) monitoring? Intracranial pressure (ICP) monitoring measures the pressure inside a patient's head, using a pressure monitor inserted through the skull. There are various reasons why this procedure may be needed, for instance, after a head injury or surgery to the brain. ICP monitoring tends to be carried out in the intensive care unit although it may be inserted in the operating theatre.The nurses and doctors will explain why ICP monitoring is...

External Video: ICU acquired weakness of muscles explained - Physiopedia video

A video giving an overview of why and how patients develop muscle weakness during critical illness.

External Video: ICU bedspace video

This video explains the ICU bedspace, the monitors, infusion pumps, alarms and air mattress.

Web Link: ICU Diaries - family experiences of keeping a diary

This link will take you to the Healthtalkonline website and their page on the use of diaries in Intensive Care. Here, you can watch short videos and listen to voice files on other people's experiences of keeping a diary for their loved one.

Article: ICU dietitian

ICU Dietitians are responsible for making sure that patients gets the right food and enough food (nutrition). This often involves having liquid food given through a feeding tube which is put in through the nose (nostril) down into the stomach (called a nasogastric tube or NG tube) or sometimes nutrition (food) can be given as a drip straight into the bloodstream through tube inserted into the vein (central line). If a patient can eat, they may be given high energy and protein food or drinks...