The Critical and Perioperative Care (CPC) theme aims to improve the prediction, prevention, diagnosis, monitoring and treatment of acute illness and injury.
Every year over 10 million surgical-operations take place in England. There are more than 4 million emergency hospital admissions and in excess of 200,000 critical care admissions. Demand is increasing and outcomes are impacted on by health inequalities and people with multiple conditions. Each year over 50,000 NHS patients die from sepsis, more than 50,000 die within 30 days of surgery, and more than 500,000 sustain potentially life-changing postoperative complications. For survivors of severe acute illness, their long-term health-related-quality-of-life and survival can be affected.
UCLH ranks first in the UK for perioperative and critical care research. Clinically impactful successes include leadership of international collaborations to redefine sepsis, developing the nationally recommended National Early Warning Score (NEWS) and Surgical Outcome Risk Tool (SORT), and technological innovations including development of the oesophageal Doppler and UCL-Ventura CPAP device.
Our work, in improving the prediction, prevention, diagnosis, monitoring and treatment of acute illness and injury, will span medical, perioperative and critical illness pathways. We will do this in line with wider NHS priorities; elective recovery, NetZero and health inequalities.
Our theme is made up of four subthemes:
Improving the quality and implementation of systems used to predict acute deterioration, adverse surgical outcome and other adverse outcomes, so that we can identify which patients are at high risk of harm, and deliver treatments to prevent harm.
Early work will particularly focus on addressing health inequalities in risk prediction, as well as evaluating novel markers such as mitochondrial function.
Developing and evaluating technologies to rapidly identify when patients are at risk of deteriorating.
We will build on decades of work with academic and industry partners and will focus on improving how we detect the imbalances in oxygen supply/demand that underpin organ dysfunction and failure.
The earlier we can diagnose infection, sepsis and organ dysfunction, the better the chances of treating it effectively and minimising adverse effects.
We are the world’s leading clinical research group for developing and trialling diagnostics and monitoring tools in these areas. We will build on this experience, continuing to investigate novel technologies and combinations of technologies.
This work includes drug and device development, evaluation and early phase translation. We will work with a diverse range of industry and academic partners, to address a range of clinical and societal challenges.
Examples include novel molecules targeting infection, patient self-management tools (fluids, pain and anxiety), and innovations aimed at improving the sustainability of healthcare.
