Stabilisation of the critically ill child

This study has been commissioned by Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership
as part of the Child Health Clinical Outcome Review Programme as part of the current contract awarded in 2019.
For information on how we use data click here

Data collection for study	To commence July 2025
Patient identification spreadsheet data collection	Open
Clinical data collection	Not open
Organisational data collection	Not open
Publication date	December 2026

Aim

• To identify good practice and areas for improvement in the quality of care provided to patients 0-18th birthday who are critically ill and require stabilisation
• To review the impact of delivering that care on staff, patients and parent carers

Participation
All acute hospital providers where patients might be admitted will be asked to participate in the study.

Data collection
The timeframe from which data will be sampled will be between the 1st October 2024 – 31st March 2025

Patient identification spreadsheets
Patients will be identified for inclusion from hospital patient administration systems and via paediatric critical care transport team records.
Via hospital patient administration systems
Local reporters will be asked to populate the patient identification spreadsheet with the details of patients who were:

• Admitted to critical care (level 2 (PHDU/HDU) or level 3 (PICU/ICU) care)
• Seen in the Emergency Department and have one of the included SNOMED CT or OPCS codes (listed below):
• Transferred to another hospital

If any one of the three criteria above are met, the patient should be included on the patient identification spreadsheet
SNOMED CT/OPCS codes for inclusion

	SNOMED CT code	OPCS code
General anaesthesia	50697003	Y80
Non-invasive ventilation	428311008	E85.2
Insertion of endotracheal tube	112798008	X56. 2X56.9
Insertion of catheter into artery	392247006	L70.4
Central venous cannula insertion	233527006	L91.2 Y53.9
Central venous cannula insertion Intraosseous cannulation	430824005	Y33.0

Via paediatric critical care transport team records
Local reporters in the Trusts/Health Boards where the paediatric critical care transport teams are based will be asked to populate the patient identification spreadsheet with the details of patients who were:

• Discussed with a critical care/paediatric transport/retrieval team during stabilisation
• Transferred by a critical care/paediatric transport/retrieval team

Exclusions

• Patients admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) or Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU)
• Patients who are admitted as a result of trauma (ICD10 codes T00 – T88) to a major trauma centre (patients admitted as a result of trauma to a non-major trauma centre will still be included)
• Patients admitted to independent hospitals

Clinician questionnaires
Two questionnaires will be used to collect clinical data for this study:

• Stabilisation questionnaire
• Critical care questionnaire (where applicable)

Up to 8 patients per hospital will be sampled for inclusion.

Case note extracts for review
Case notes will be requested for all patients included in the peer review aspect of the study.
Organisational questionnaires
An organisational questionnaire will be sent to all hospitals where patients (0-18th birthday) might be admitted
Please see the study protocol for more detailed information on the study methods.

Any other queries relating to this study should also be addressed to stabilisation@ncepod.org.uk
This page will be updated regularly so please check for further information.