Our Critical Care Follow-up clinic was started in 2002 by Dr P Young and Sister Sandra Taylor. It continues to be led by Sister Taylor together with Dr Kay Adeniji and Dr Sara Blakeley. The clinic generally sees patients who have a stay of more than 3 days on the Critical Care unit.

Why come to Clinic?

Patients can have multi-faceted problems related to Critical Care. The clinic provides an opportunity to discuss what patients should expect from their recovery and for us to see what progress has been made following discharge from the unit. Patients and their families/loved ones have found this clinic to be of great benefit.

The ICU follow up clinic’s aims are based on the principles of the NICE guideline 83 (2009) for rehabilitation after critical illness. These include:

• Providing information for patients or relatives on their ICU stay. Patients can discuss any concerns about memory problems and their recovery
• Identifying, supporting and providing guidance to patients and relatives regarding physical and psychological issues
• Facilitating onward referrals for specialist care (medical and psychological)
• Providing a contact person for on-going support
• Making the service available to all ICU patients

The Clinic is run weekly on a Monday on E5, the Critical Care unit, Queen Alexandra Hospital.

Booking an Appointment

Patients who have been on the Critical Care Unit for more than 3 days may receive a letter inviting them to attend after hospital discharge. However, any patient who has been on critical care is welcome to call and book an appointment. Any specialty can refer patients to clinic if they feel we can help.

For more information please contact

Sister Sandra Taylor – Telephone 02392286000 (Ext 3381)

Other useful resources

The Intensive Care Unit Support Teams for Ex-Patients (ICUsteps) is a highly recommended free web source http://www.icusteps.org/. It was founded in 2005 by ex-patients, their relatives and ICU staff. There is a forum on the ICUsteps site which may be of use and is available here.

Other resources that may be helpful include:
Asthma UK
British Heart Foundation
BRAKE - road safety charity
British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy
The Colostomy Association
Cruse Bereavement Care
Diabetes UK
Finally some other links can be found here