The Critical Care Unit at St James’s Hospital is comprised of the General Intensive Care Unit, Cardiothoracic Unit and the National Burns Unit. The vision for Critical Care is to be a national centre of excellence, delivering quality, holistic, evidence-based individualised care, by a team who are committed to this shared vision. The Critical Care team is focused on pursuing quality outcomes of care while promoting a culture of education and innovation. Patient care is documented electronically by all members of the multidisciplinary team (MDT), using a clinical information system called ICCA®.
General Intensive Care Unit
The General Intensive Care Unit (GICU) at St James’s Hospital is a tertiary referral centre, providing advanced therapies, supporting a wide range of medical and surgical specialities. The GICU provides expert care to critically ill patients, supporting hospital, regional and national services. Currently, the GICU is a twenty-five bedded unit with a combination of open plan beds and isolation rooms. Plans are underway to build a fifty bedded GICU, for completion by 2025.
Cardiothoracic Intensive Care Unit
The Cardiothoracic Unit (Keith Shaw) is comprised of an eight-bedded ICU and a fifteen-bedded ward, which includes a four-bedded High Dependency Unit (HDU). This unit facilitates both emergency and elective adult cardiac surgery, including procedures such as CABG, AVR, MVR and complex aortic aneurysm repair. There is also a busy thoracic surgery service in St James’s Hospital, which is a designated National Cancer Control Programme centre (NCCP) and therefore facilitates complex thoracic surgery for cancer patients, as well as being a referral centre for thoracic emergencies. All elective patients follow an integrated care pathway which commences at the Pre-admission Clinic.
The National Burns Unit
St James’s Hospital is home to The National Burns Unit, a national service, providing optimal care, including complex wound care for burn-injured patients, ranging from minor to life-threatening injuries. The MDT is dedicated to improving the quality of care delivered to this patient cohort. There is a strong focus on rehabilitation following the acute injury, maximising long term physical and psycho-social function, in addition to providing support to staff in acute hospitals nationwide.
The teams
Throughout Critical Care, patient care and treatment is delivered by a large cohort of nurses who are supported by nurse managers, educators and advanced nurse practitioners. In addition to nurses, the ICU team for the GICU and the Cardiothoracic Unit is substantial; comprising of intensive care and primary physicians, and a wide MDT of physiotherapists, pharmacists, clinical nutritionists, speech and language therapists, occupational therapists, informatics personnel, clinical engineering staff and support staff.
Professional Development
Education and training are at the forefront across Critical Care. We have a team of dedicated nurse educators and senior nurses allocated to empower and coach all nurses to reach their full potential. We also have an excellent Adaptation Programme for nurses and an established nurse educational pathway:
Step 1 - Critical Care Programme for new graduate nurses.
Step 2 - Foundation courses affiliated with Trinity College Dublin, including:
a) Intensive Care Nursing
b) Thoracic Surgery Nursing
c) Burns Nursing for nurses with limited or no ICU experience.
Step 3 - Postgraduate Diploma in Critical Care Nursing to Masters Programme, facilitated conjointly by St James’s Hospital and Trinity College Dublin.
There are regular formal and informal education sessions available for all nurses in critical care in the form of refresher days and high-fidelity simulation, with state of the art technology. Separately, there are an array of courses provided by the hospital’s Centre for Learning and Development.
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