Irish Paediatric Critical Care Audit National Report 2017-2019

Irish Paediatric Critical Care Audit National Report 2017-2019 Image

The Irish Paediatric Critical Care Audit (IPCCA) was established by NOCA and reports on the care of patients in paediatric critical care units in Ireland.

The Irish Paediatric Critical Care Audit National Report 2017-2019 presents data on 4,490 infants, children and adolescents who were cared for across the two PCCUs in Ireland over the 3 year period.

Key Findings

The PCCUs in the ROI admit an average of 1,500 patients per annum, with the potential to open 32 PCCU beds at any one time. During the period from 2017 to 2019, up to 10,000 bed days per annum were provided to paediatric patient groups. Bed occupancy exceeded the recommended limit of 85% in both PCCUs during this period and occupancy rates of up to 100% continue to be reported.

Key Recommendations

Recommendation 1

Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) should use the data in this report to work with the Health Service Executive (HSE) in order to inform the planning and implementation of adequate measures for optimising bed capacity in the Paediatric Critical Care Units (PCCUs) in the Republic of Ireland (ROI). Providing the resources adequate to maintain a bed occupancy of 85% would provide flexibility in order to cover surges such as flu pandemics and the winter surge, and avoid the late cancellation of semi-elective surgeries.

​Recommendation 2

CHI and the National Ambulance Service – Critical Care & Retrieval Services (NAS-CCRS) should operationally enable the extension and development of the Irish Paediatric Acute Transport Service to a 24-hour-per-day, 7-day-per-week centralised transport service (CTS). This will help to ensure that a specialised paediatrics retrieval team transfers all critically ill children.

Recommendation 3

Procedures for recording, collecting and reporting data included in the Irish Paediatric Critical Care Audit (IPCCA), and submitted to the Paediatric Intensive Care Audit Network (PICANet) dataset, should be reviewed by the National Office of Clinical Audit (NOCA) and PICANet.

Recommendation 4

Future development of the IPCCA should be guided by a review of the scope and governance of the national clinical audit and should include additional detailed data, which will greatly add to the national overview of paediatric critical care.