NICE: “Give Critically Ill Patients Rehab Goals Within Four Days”
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), have published a new quality standard that declares patients in critical care, who are at risk of morbidity, should have their rehabilitation goals agreed upon within four days of admission.
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The standard set by NICE demonstrates different ways in which the care of adults, who are in critical care for longer than four days, can be improved. These people may also be at risk of a physical morbidity such as muscle loss, or a non-physical morbidity such as cognitive dysfunction.
Furthermore, the standard recommends that physiotherapists, and other healthcare professionals, should provide patients that fall in to this category with the following:
Consultant physiotherapist, David McWilliams, works in critical care at the University of Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust. He explains: “…this quality standard offers measurable standards to support this structure and will be of great benefit to both physiotherapists and patients”.
Rachael Moses, a physio consultant at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, believes that on a local level, commissioning services like this have often proved difficult. However, the NICE quality standards could help health professionals identify a need, risk assess, demonstrate the necessity for a relevant service and benchmark their services.