Research

This web site is intended to provide information on the Critical Care Department  at Queen Alexandra Hospital and access to the department guideline is available for healthcare professionals. The organisation requires that any changes intended on those guidelines are communicated to the department and excludes any responsibility for the use of those guidelines by any Trust personnel or third parties. All reasonable measures have been taken to ensure the quality and accuracy of the information. However, the department may change, delete, add to or otherwise amend information contained in this website. While the Department has taken care to provide accurate information, this website  is a general guide and is not a substitute for clinical advice. This website has been prepared carefully and in good faith, the Department  is not liable for any errors, costs or losses arising from use of this website or the information contained herein.

All research activity is undertaken by dedicated staff, who have received ICH-GCP training. Activity is regularly monitored by the trials sponsors and the MHRA, who made a routine inspection of PHT in 2011.

The department operates within the clinical governance structure of PHT with regular minuted morbidity and mortality meetings and within the Trust’s risk reporting system. Our department has an exemplary rolling annual audit programme, and all clinical audits are registered with the PHT audit dept.

Patients and family members may be approached by one of our research team to ask if our patient would like to be considered for participation in a study. You will be provided with information and the opportunity to ask questions and take time to consider these discussions. You are under no obligation to do this but we offer this to all our patients where they meet the eligibility criteria for studies that we are involved with. Details of studies we are currently involved with and previous ones are recorded below:

Current portfolio research studies

ADRENAL: ADjunctive coRticosteroid trEatment iN criticAlly ilL Patients With Septic Shock
REST: pRotective vEntilation with veno-venouS lung assisT in respiratory failure
DecubICU: A Multicentre International One-Day Prevalence Study on Pressure Injuries in Intensive Care UnitsAKI-ICU
Trial 65
PEPTIC
ASPIRE
TEST-IT

Departmental research studies

CANDLE:
Regional quality improvement project assessing light intensity in Critical Care. Portsmouth ICU conducted the pilot study and lead site. Awarded AAGBI research grant http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1751143717748095
GLASS-heart: An observational study to explore the use of Global Longitudinal Strain in Septic Shock in comparison to conventional myocardial dysfunction monitoring. Enrolment to commence soon

Interpreting evidence based medicine

The Bottom Line is an open access review and critique of landmark papers in Critical Care. It was set up in Portsmouth by Steve Mathieu, Dave Slessor and Duncan Chambler. It now has around 1500 page views per day and nearly 10000 followers on twitter. It has received international plaudits for the weekly review if evidence based practice. These reviews are shared within our unit and form part of our journal club presentations.

Previous portfolio research studies

DecubICU: A Multicentre International One-Day Prevalence Study on Pressure Injuries in Intensive Care Units
SILENCE:
The Sleep in the Intensive Care Unit
OSCAR: High frequency Oscillation vs conventional ventilation in severe hypoxaemic respiratory failure.
TracMan: HTA funded multicentre trial of early vs late tracheostomy on survival and length of stay
Prowess Shock: Commercially sponsored multicentre international study of activated protein C vs placebo in early stage septic shock, plus proteomics sub study
EASE: environmental monitoring of airborne samples HPA run
European Surgical Outcomes Study: UKCLRN funded point prevalence study
FIRE: Fungal Infection Risk Evaluation - UKCLRN funded
iCanUK: Intensive care follow up identification study
SwiFT: Swine Flu Surveillance 2009/10 UKCLRN funded
USII: Surveillance of unidentified pathogens for the HPA
CALORIES: Early enteral vs parenteral nutrition in critical illness. UKCLRN funded
VANISH: Vasopressin vs Noradrenaline as Initial therapy in septic shock.
FIRST: Faecal Incontinence reassessment study
LeoPARDS: An efficacy and mechanism evaluation study of Levosimendan for the Prevention of Acute oRgan Dysfunction in Sepsis