Our Services A - Z - Critical Care Unit
About the service
Admission to Critical Care is a time of great stress and worry for all. We are all aware of this and will do our best to help and explain what is happening. A specialist rehabilitation nurse is available to provide support following discharge. The medical emergency team also provide continuity of care and support to patients on the wards. The unit is committed to development and evidence-based practice in accordance with the trust goal of '5-Star Patient Care'.
Critical Care is a department that cares for patients who require higher levels of medical intervention and nursing care.
Our Critical Care is staffed by specialist medical, nursing and allied health professionals trained in Critical Care. It has higher levels of staffing, specialist monitoring, treatment and equipment. We are committed to providing the best outcome for our patients.
- What is Critical Care
Intensive Care Units (ICU), also called the Critical Care Department, look after patients whose conditions are life-threatening and need constant, close monitoring and support from equipment and medication to keep normal body functions going. Intensive care units in the United Kingdom are run and staffed by specialists trained in intensive care. They have higher levels of staffing, specialist monitoring and treatment equipment only available in these areas and the staff are highly trained in caring for the most severely ill patients. Senior staff are closely involved in the hour by hour management of patients by the bedside and all staff are especially trained to care for the most unwell patients.
Some patients are in an ICU for shorter periods of time than others, depending on the extent of their illness or injury. As patients get better, they are transferred to a general ward somewhere else in the hospital.
Once a patient is admitted to the unit, the intensive care team will manage the care of the patient in consultation with the original team that admitted the patient to the hospital and any other specialists that they think can help to aid the patient's recovery. The intensive care doctors and nurses will give the best overview and general update on the patient, but they may sometimes refer relatives to the specialist teams for discussion of certain aspects of care.
Once a patient has recovered and is well enough to be transferred to the ward, their care will be handed over to the ward team. Our outreach intensive care team may continue to visit patients on the ward and we also have an internationally recognised rehabilitation service for specific patients who have had long stays and been severely unwell.
Infection control is very important in intensive care as patients who are very unwell are very susceptible to infection, and staff and visitors are required to comply with local hygiene policies.
The above text has been adapted from the Intensive Care Society (UK) website that has further information for patients and relatives: http://www.ics.ac.uk - About the team
Clinical Director:
Ascanio TridenteDirectorate manager:
Bongi GbadeboLead Nurse:
Shirley PritchardNurse Consultant:
John ElmoreNurse Co-ordinators
Shirley Leyland
Julie Kysh
Rebecca Barrow
Jane Bennett
Dena Price
Susan FrodshamPractice Educator
Beverley RileyRehabilitation Nurse Specialist
Emma Whitby
Quality & Audit Sister
Kerry Pennington-HaighPharmacist
Greg Barton - Our Consultants
Dr Ascanio Tridente - DMS(Hons), MRCP(UK), MSc CT, EDIC, FICM
Clinical Director / Consultant in Intensive Care Medicine and General Internal Medicine
Interests: Research, Echocardiography, Information TechnologyDr Louisa Anderson - MBChB, MRCP(UK), FRCA, FICM
BSc (Medical Sciences) St Andrews
Consultant Intensive Care Medicine and Anaesthetics
Qualified: Manchester 1995
Speciality Training: Mersey DeaneryDr Nicholas Bolton
Consultant Intensive Care Medicine and AnaestheticsDr Chamene Welhengama
Consultant Intensive Care Medicine and AnaestheticsDr Diane Murray
Consultant Intensive Care Medicine and AnaestheticsDr Anthony Cochrane
Consultant Intensive Care Medicine and AnaestheticsMr Patrick Nee
Consultant in Emergency Medicine and Intensive Care Medicine - Location and Contact Details
The Critical Care is located on Level 4, Whiston Hospital.
Critical Care Unit Reception - 0151 430 1581
- Useful Links
Websites
BRAKE - The Road Safety Charity
Brake is a road safety charity dedicated to stopping deaths and injuries on roads and caring for people bereaved and injured on the road.Cruse Bereavement Care
Cruse Bereavement Care exists to promote the well-being of bereaved people and to enable anyone bereaved by death to understand their grief and cope with their loss. The organisation provides counselling and support. It offers information, advice, education and training services.
DIPEx - Database of Individual Patient Experiences (http://www.dipex.org/intensivecare)
An Oxford based registered charity. It is a database of audio, video and transcript of interviews with patients experiencing a particular illness or health problems which includes a module on intensive care.Headway
A national charity that supports people with a brain injury and those who care for them.ICNARC - Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre
ICNARC was set up in 1994 as a charitable company limited by guarantee. It is a sister organisation of the Intensive Care Society (ICS) the professional organisation for doctors working in critical care.ICUsteps - Intensive Care Unit Support Team for Ex-Patients
This charity is a support group set up by former intensive care patients and family members based in Milton Keynes. They hold regular drop-ins and offer support for other ex-patients or family members to come along and talk about their experiences and rehabilitation. The web site includes ex-patients and family members own experiences, offers a bulletin board and a contact page. It also gives the dates of drop-in events.Patient UK
An independent service leading to high quality UK internet health sites. - Patient Leaflets
Title - Intensive Care Rehabilitation Manual
Description - When you have been ill, it can take quite a while to get back to feeling your normal self. Exactly how long this will take will depend on things like the length of time you have been ill, whether you have lost a lot of weight and whether your illness means that you will have to change some aspects of your lifestyle. - History of Whiston Intensive Care
History of Whiston Intensive Care
Intensive care at Whiston has a proud and long history and represents today the efforts of many doctors, nurses and allied professionals working together to create a little bit of history to be proud of.
The speciality of Intensive Care is generally recognised as having started in 1952 associated with the polio epidemic in Copenhagen. This showed that prolonged artificial ventilation could greatly improve the outcome of such serious life-threatening illness. In 1958 a 3 bedded Respiratory Unit was established using two side wards on Ward E3 at Whiston Hospital. Artificial respiration using an East Radcliffe anaesthetic ventilator was successfully introduced.
In 1962 a submission to the Hospital Management Committee and the Regional Hospital Board to establish an Intensive Care Area on Ward G16 was made. This was chosen as the Clinical Research Laboratory which produced much original research was already sited on G16. The Minister of Health approved the plan in September 1963 and £5280 was allocated. Work was completed in March 1964. The unit comprised 8 beds. Interestingly at the same time an "Accident Ward" (G13) was also established with the intention to concentrate the severely injured in one place, avoid the cancellation of waiting list patients and minimise disturbance to other patients at night. In 1966 in the Journal Thorax a paper on the management of severe crush injuries of the chest was published, of the 6 cases described 2 survived which was, at the time, a measure of success!
During the late 1960's and early 1970's the Unit was lead by Dr E Sherwood-Jones who was a physician. He was a founding member and later became the President of the UK Intensive Care Society. With a single handed dedication to the critically ill Dr Sherwood-Jones has left an important legacy. The Unit was also very active in nursing education and delivered Intensive Care Nursing Courses for many years until this was taken up by national bodies. The fundamental belief was "the right patient in the right place at the right time", as true today as it was then. Many other papers and publications on the management of Asthma, nutrition, pancreatitis and the development of biochemical analysis were published and a number of MD Thesis' completed by doctors associated with the Unit and Clinical Research Laboratory.
Among his medical trainees was a Dr Steve Atherton who later became consultant in intensive care medicine in 1979, and published an important research on the association between germs in the stomach and pneumonia. He later became the first medical director of the Hospital. Dr Atherton was joined in 1984 when Dr Robin Macmillan was appointed as consultant in intensive care and anaesthesia.
Dr Macmillan had also trained under Sherwood-Jones holding many posts at Whiston and in later years he also became Medical director of the Hospital after Dr Atherton and served for some 11 years. Steve and Robin were a formidable intensive care duo and together initially also helped run accident and emergency and then develop the Emergency medicine service.They understood the need for research in the critically ill and in 1985 Dr Richard Griffiths joined as an honorary consultant in intensive care medicine and then a new Senior Lecturer at the University of Liverpool.
Dr C Harris and Mr P Nee joined the consultant body shortly after, emphasising the multidisciplinary involvement. Dr Harris was among the first doctors who had undergone a specialised training in Intensive Care which was then finally recognised as a specific speciality. Mr Nee was trained also in Accident and Emergency Medicine. The Intensive Care Unit remained on Ward G16 until a major development including a new Accident and Emergency Department was completed. The new unit was opened by Dr E Sherwood-Jones in September 1996. The Unit now had 10 bed spaces though not all were funded. There was a Coronary Care Unit located next to the Intensive Care Unit and all were near to the Emergency Department. The consultant body expanded further as did the numbers of patients passing through the unit.
The intensive care unit has many "firsts" in clinical care or research. Building upon the legacy of Dr Sherwood-Jones & Atherton who would see patients or care for patients after intensive care in their medical capacity, Dr Richard Griffiths (later to become Professor Griffiths, with a personal chair at the University of Liverpool in 2002) established a post intensive care service with the assistance of Dr Christina Jones (later to become Nurse Consultant). Over the last 25 years our pioneering research has included landmark studies on glutamine in nutrition, the problems of muscle wasting and psychological problems following critical illness; work published in leading international journals. Post ICU rehabilitation has received international acknowledgement and is now part of national UK guidance. The developments of outreach, rehabilitation and bereavement counselling attest to the medical and nursing teams desire to improve the care for our patients and relatives.
In 2000, a new larger and better equipped Coronary Care Unit opened and the old area taken over to form a High Dependency Unit with 6 beds. This was staffed and directed by the increasing number of Intensive Care Consultants. The two units are now integrated entirely giving flexibility in the number and intensity of patients we are able to manage. It also allows the transition of patients who have had prolonged intensive care to pass through a lower dependency nursing ratio prior to ward discharge. There is a well developed Outreach Service that identifies patients at risk of deterioration on the General Wards and follows up discharges from the HDU and ICU.
In 2010, we moved into the new hospital. We have become busier, bigger and able to do and offer more to an increasing number of critically ill patients. The critical care team of expert nurses, physiotherapists, pharmacists, technicians and doctors has grown with many new faces. But we have also have many senior nurses who have given a lifetime of dedication to critical care, some longer than any of the medical staff. Without them there would be no history.
The following are the details recorded of the first "ICU" patient
Female 32yrs
Status epilepticus
Admitted 03-04-62
Discharged 11-05-62Total number of admissions in the first year of 1962 was about 60. Today the unit will care for about 750 patients per annum.
Consultant Medical Appointments Associated with the Intensive Care Unit:
1956 Dr E Sherwood-Jones
1978 Dr ST Atherton
1984 Dr RR Macmillan
1985 Dr RD Griffiths
1991 Dr CE Harris
1994 Mr P Nee
1996 Dr T Brown
1997 Dr T Hankin
2003 Dr J Wood
2004 Dr F Andrews
2005 Dr T Mahambrey
2009 Dr K Sim
2009 Dr P Jeanrenaud
2013 Ascanio Tridente
2014 Louisa AndersonHow the Follow-up and Rehabilitation service got started
In 1990 funding for research into patient's recovery from critical illness in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) was used to set up the first dedicated outpatient clinic for ICU patients in the UK.
Since 1990 various research projects have been undertaken. The main aims of the present research are to examine the factors influencing psychological recovery and the incidence of cognitive problems following critical illness.
Christina Jones and Professor Griffiths were pioneers in the care of patients following critical illness and Whiston Hospital remains a leading example today.
Dr Christina JonesNurse Consultant Critical Care Follow-up.
BSc, MPhil, PhD, PG Dip Counselling & Psychotherapy.
International research reputation in the rehabilitation of the physical and psychological problems after intensive care.
Professor Richard D GriffithsBSc, MBBS, MD, FRCP, FHEA
Hon. Consultant Intensive Care Medicine
Prof Richard D GriffithsProfessor of Medicine (Intensive Care)
International research reputation in intensive care nutrition (glutamine), muscle metabolism and as a pioneer for the rehabilitation of the physical and psychological problems after intensive care (see ICU rehab).
Page last updated on 07th June 2022
