Specialist team treats 20,000 patients (From Daily Echo)

Specialist team treats 20,000 patients

7:20am Sunday 12th February 2012 in News

A SPECIALIST team of medics on a mission to take action before critically ill patients need to be treated in intensive care are celebrating a major milestone.

The critical care outreach team at Southampton General Hospital have treated 20,000 patients since being one of the first to launch in the country in 2001.

The 11-strong, highly experienced team are still one of only seven in the country working 24 hours a day, seven days a week to give some of the sickest patients in hospital the specialist care they need, before their condition becomes life-threatening.

Any ward throughout the hospital can call the team into action if they fear a patient is getting worse. They will intervene, offering their specialist skills to prevent an admission to the intensive care unit which many find frightening and uncomfortable.

They are also there to care for patients within 12 hours of being discharged from intensive care, making sure that they do not need to make a return.

Gordon Crittell, from Southampton, is the 20,000th patient treated by the team, after suffering complications following abdominal surgery.

Their help has prevented the 84- year-old from having to go back to intensive care and he is now making a recovery on the ward.