Who are the CCOT?
The Critical Care Outreach Team are a group of specially trained senior critical care nurses from various backgrounds including the intensive care unit (ICU), high dependency (HDU) and the emergency department.
What do they do?
Their main role is to respond to patients that are becoming increasingly unwell on the general wards. This call for help can come from any member of staff that is concerned about the condition or wellbeing of a patient.
Using specialist knowledge and advanced assessment skills they work with the patient’s ward team to try & prevent further deterioration and look at a patient’s treatment options. If the patient would benefit from (and wishes to accept) more advanced or invasive treatment, they can coordinate admission to critical care with the on call ICU consultant.
The team try to facilitate frank and open discussions with patients & their families about the benefits and burdens of critical care therapy. We appreciate that critical care isn’t right for everyone and the team work with the patient to get the best outcome for them. Some patients may have been admitted to critical care before and this may influence their future treatment wishes.
Not every patient referred to the CCOT needs admission to critical care. The team may decide your relative’s treatment can safely continue on the general ward – sometimes with ongoing support from the outreach team. As the patient improves the outreach team will step back and make less frequent visits once everyone is satisfied the patient is making a good recovery.
The outreach team recognise that family, friends and carers have an important role in a patient’s treatment and recovery. The team will want to update you on your relative’s condition and sometimes will need to gather information from you about their general health.
Critical care follow up
The outreach team follow up critical care patients after they have been discharged from ICU/HDU. This could be a telephone call to the ward team to make sure they are happy with your relative or a visit in person. They work closely with the Critical Care Rehabilitation team ensure patients receive appropriate ongoing physical and psychological support.
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