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Original research
Transport of critically ill children to paediatric intensive care units in the UK and Ireland: 2013–2022
  1. Padmanabhan Ramnarayan1,
  2. Dora Wood2,
  3. Elizabeth Draper3,
  4. Lyn Palmer3,
  5. Richard Feltbower4,
  6. Hannah L Buckley4,
  7. Michael J Griksaitis5,6,
  8. Daniel Henry Lutman7,
  9. Constantinos Kanaris8,
  10. Deirdre O’Shea9,
  11. Sarah E Seaton3
  12. On behalf of the Paediatric Critical Care Society Acute Transport Group
  1. 1Imperial College London, London, UK
  2. 2Wales and West Acute Transport for Children Service (WATCh), Bristol Royal Hospital for Children, Bristol, UK
  3. 3Department of Population Health Sciences, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK
  4. 4University of Leed, Leeds, UK
  5. 5Paediatric Intensive Care Unit, Southampton Children’s Hospital, Southampton, UK
  6. 6University of Southampton Faculty of Medicine, Southampton, UK
  7. 7Children’s Acute Transport Service, Great Ormond Street Hospital For Children NHS Trust, London, UK
  8. 8Cambridge University NHS Trust, Cambridge, UK
  9. 9Oxford University NHS Trust, Oxford, UK
  1. Correspondence to Dr Sarah E Seaton; sarah.seaton{at}leicester.ac.uk

Abstract

Objective To explore the trends and changes in the transport of children to paediatric intensive care units (PICUs) between 2013 and 2022.

Design Retrospective analysis of routinely collected data.

Patients Children transported for care in a PICU in the UK and Ireland aged<16 years.

Interventions None.

Measurements and main results There were 43 058 transports to a PICU involving 36 438 children from 2013 to 2022 with the majority of children requiring only one transport. The number of transports increased from 4131 (2013) to 4792 (2022). Over the study period the percentage of children aged under 1 year who were transported decreased from 50.2% to 45.2% and similarly, the percentage who were invasively ventilated also decreased from 81.1% to 70.2%. Conversely, the use of non-invasive ventilation during transports increased slightly from 4.0% to 7.0%. The percentage of transports where a parent was able to accompany the child increased over time (2013: 66.2% to 2019: 74.9%), although there were reductions due to the COVID-19 pandemic and requirements for social distancing (2020: 52.4%).

Conclusions We have demonstrated an increased use of specialist paediatric transport services and changes in the PICU population over time. Routine data collection from the transport services provide a means to measure improvements and changes over time in the service provided to critically ill children and young people who need transport to the PICU.

  • Intensive Care Units, Paediatric
  • Data Collection

Data availability statement

Data may be obtained from a third party and are not publicly available. PICANet data for England may be requested from the data controller, the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership. A Data Access Request Form can be obtained from https://www.hqip.org.uk/national-programmes/accessing-ncapop-data/

https://doi.org/10.1136/archdischild-2024-327088

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    Data availability statement

    Data may be obtained from a third party and are not publicly available. PICANet data for England may be requested from the data controller, the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership. A Data Access Request Form can be obtained from https://www.hqip.org.uk/national-programmes/accessing-ncapop-data/

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    Footnotes

    • X @MJGriksaitis

    • Collaborators On behalf of the Paediatric Critical Care Society Acute Transport Group.

    • Contributors SES led the analysis and oversaw the writing of the paper and is the guarantor. RP and DW led the writing of the paper. RP, DW, LP, MJG, DHL, CK and DOS provided clinical contributions. HLB, ED, LP and RF provided insight on data collection and analysis. All authors contributed to the writing of the paper, revising it critically for content and helping interpret and contextualise findings. SES is responsible for overall content as the guarantor.

    • Funding PICANet is funded by National Health Service (NHS) England, NHS Lothian and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde in Scotland, the Welsh Health Specialised Services Committee, the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children, the National Office of Clinical Audit in the Republic of Ireland and HCA Healthcare.

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    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Supplemental material This content has been supplied by the author(s). It has not been vetted by BMJ Publishing Group Limited (BMJ) and may not have been peer-reviewed. Any opinions or recommendations discussed are solely those of the author(s) and are not endorsed by BMJ. BMJ disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on the content. Where the content includes any translated material, BMJ does not warrant the accuracy and reliability of the translations (including but not limited to local regulations, clinical guidelines, terminology, drug names and drug dosages), and is not responsible for any error and/or omissions arising from translation and adaptation or otherwise.