Improving critical care with lessons from the pandemic

Over a quarter of a million people in the UK enter critical care each year. They’ll be the sickest patients, needing the most advanced care and highly skilled staff to monitor them closely.

In this episode we’ll focus on what’s distinct about the critical care setting and the particular challenges for improving services and carrying out research. We’ll hear about the extraordinary shock of COVID-19, where critical care was at the heart of a new and unfolding crisis, and what this meant for patients and for staff.

Host Tara Lamont and guests Jo McPeake, Annelieke Driessen, and Debbie Clark discuss:

• How do we take forward what we learned from the pandemic so we are prepared for future uncertainties and demands?
• What do we mean by quality and safety in the critical care environment?
• How do we get the balance right, between protocolised care and responding to the needs of patients?

About our guest

Tara Lamont has been a Senior Advisor to the Fellowships programme at THIS Institute since 2021. With over thirty years’ experience in health services research and policy, Tara currently provides scientific support to NIHR programmes and has led national work on engagement and dissemination of health research.

Joanne McPeake is Professor of Nursing at the University of Cambridge and Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and is a THIS Fellow. Jo has a long-standing interest in the integration of health and social care and social inequalities. She has a clinical background in critical care nursing. 

Debbie Clark is a Critical Care Nurse and Senior Lecturer in Nursing. Debbie’s THIS fellowship research with THIS explored when it is safer to work around a safety protocol, understanding how and in what circumstances a flexible approach to safety management supports safety.

Annelieke Driessen is an anthropologist interested in how care – for sick people, for water, for futures – is done in practice. She has previously explored these interests in end-of-life care and intensive care in the UK through her THIS fellowship project and is currently researching domestic water use in the Netherlands.

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