Critical Care Follow Up Clinics
Many patients who have gone through critical illness face a long and difficult recovery period. Physical and psychological problems,such as nightmares, anxiety and panic attacks are very common.
If a person have spent more than 2-3 days as a patient on a Critical Care Unit, they will be sent a letter inviting them to attend the Critical Care Unit's follow-up clinic. The letter will be sent to them approximately 2-3 months after they have left Critical Care.
The follow up Clinic will provide the patient and their family / carer with an opportunity to discuss their experience and care with the team and they will hopefully be able to answer any questions that the person may have about their critical illness or hospital stay. The team will also discuss and explain the person's critical care diary with them at the clinic appointment. There is further information on patient diaries within the diary guidance section on this website.
It also offers the follow up clinic team an opportunity to check that the person is continuing to make good progress with thier physical and psychological recovery following their critical illness.
Importantly it also allows the critical care team to learn from the patient and your family, which in turn, will help the team to continue to improve the care they provide for future critical care patients and their relatives within the critical care unit.
The follow up clinic is facilitated by key members of the unit's multidisciplinary team, all who have the responsibility for critical care patient follow up as part of their role. These are usually Critical Care Consultant unit senior nurse and/or a member of the Critical Care Outreach team, Physiotherapist, Speech and Language Therapist and Occupational Therapist. If the critical care unit has a unit based psychologist they will also attend the clinic. If the unit has not got a unit based psychologist, the clinic team may be able to arrange for another member of staff from psychology services to attend the clinic or will signpost anyone who may need assistance from this service either during or following the clinic appointment.
For further information on critical care follow up clinics please click on the links below
Research that has been undertaken nationally has shown that a significant number of people who have had a critical illness may benefit from attending a follow-up appointment.
The Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine (FICM) have webpages dedicated to critical care follow up clinics
The critical care follow-up clinic | The Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine
Going home following a critical care admission | The Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine
Physical recovery | The Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine
Hallucinations following a critical care admission | The Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine
Memory loss following a critical care admission | The Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine
The Faculty Board of FICM also led a working party to produce the following best practice guidance document entitled Life After Critical Illness. Tis gives best practice guidance in the development, commissioning and management of ‘Follow up’ services, including learning from existing examples of practice.
To view the gudance document please click here
Critical Care Rehabilitation
Rehabilitation whilst in critical care and post critical care is vital to enable patients to live as independently as possible following a critical illness. The overall goal of rehabilitation is to improve a person’s quality of life, maximising independence and outcomes.
Early rehabilitation whilst in critical care helps improves the patient outcomes and recovery from critical illness. Patients are individually assessed by the critical care Allied Health Professional (AHP) team (physiotherapists, Speech and Language Therapists, Occupational Therapists, Dieticians and Psychologists) and a rehabilitation programme is developed specific to the patients individual rehabiiltation needs. This will comprise of exercises and activities designed by the critical care AHP team to promote physical and cognitive improvement following critical illness.
The National Institute for Clinical Excellance (NICE) produced a quality standard document entitled Rehabilitation after critical illness. NICE quality standards describe high-priority areas for quality improvement in a defined care or service area. Each NICE standard consists of a prioritised set of specific, concise and measurable statements. NICE quality standards draw on existing NICE or NICE-accredited guidance that provides an underpinning, comprehensive set of recommendations, and are designed to support the measurement of improvement.
To view this document please click here
Below are some links to resources that have been developed for patients and their families around critical care rehabilitations
Patient Rehabilitation Resources
To access the resources please click on the links below :
Critical Care Support network patient information
Critical Care Support Network - exercise pages
Cheshire and Mersey Rehabilitation Network (CMRN) patient and relative information