Critical Care Outreach Service in the UK - Literature review Example

For many years, the huge number of critical illness is not proportional to the available resources coming from the critical care units in local hospitals all over the United Kingdom. The health services rendered by the nurses in critical care units particularly the surgical and medical wards are very limited. In fact, the review conducted by the Audit Commission (1999) shows that there are variations in the critical care practice between hospitals due to either the differences in the skills of each intensive care nurses or the health care resources available in each intensive care unit.

In line with this matter, the Department of Health seeks to address this issue by listing some recommendations that have been set out in the document entitled ‘Comprehensive Critical Care – A Review of Adult Critical Care Services’ (Department of Health, 2000b). To solve the problem related to critically ill patients, the Audit Commission (1999) and the Department of Health (2000a) strongly recommends the implementation of a critical care outreach services in each acute local hospitals in order to improve the health services rendered to the critically ill patients.

Working within a critical care outreach team requires a high level of knowledge with regards to related theories and practices. Therefore, it is crucial to explore the concept of critical care outreach service, the government proposals, implications on patient care, and the implications of the professional nursing practice. In the process of integrating several issues on the critical care outreach service, the study will explore its impact on issues such as avoiding unnecessary admissions to intensive care or facilitating necessary admissions before a situation becomes too critical or even fatal; offering support post-discharge from the critical care environment; providing teaching and support to junior critical care staff as well as students and ward staff; and the importance of working as well as building trust with the multidisciplinary team members.