The Intensive Care Unit at the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Hospital is a 9 bedded unit, taking a mixture of Intensive care and High Dependency patients.
Our light and airy unit is friendly and welcoming and we pride ourselves on providing high quality personalised care for our patients and care and support for their families.
Patients are admitted to our ITU either following planned surgery or due to deterioration in their condition. ITU is an area which is staffed and equipped to closely monitor and treat patients with life threatening conditions or to support them when one or more of their body systems are not functioning properly, such as kidneys, lungs, heart.
We have an excellent team of nurses and doctors caring for our patients, supported by teams from physiotherapy, dietetics and pharmacy. Staff are very well supported to develop skills and knowledge through an experienced team and by robust development plans, supported by the Clinical Nurse Educators.
We appreciate that having a loved one admitted to Intensive Care is a frightening and worrying time for families. When a patient is first admitted, you may need to wait for 1 – 2 hours for us to stabilise their condition. A member of staff will keep you up to date and we will allow you to visit them and explain what is happening as soon as we can.
Initially visiting is restricted to close family or friends only. We can only accommodate 2 visitors at a time per patient due to safety and space, so we recommend you do not visit in large groups. You may be asked to wait whilst care is being carried out. We have a dedicated visitor’s waiting room where you can sit.
We suggest that only 1 member of the family telephones for updates and then passes this information on to the rest of the family. We are limited in the information we can give over the telephone and each phone call can take us away from caring for the patient.
We have fairly open visiting but have a daily rest period between 1 and 4pm daily where the lights are dimmed and the patients are allowed to rest. There is no visiting during this period of time unless agreed with the nurse in charge. We do try to encourage a normal day/night routine as adequate sleep and rest is vital to a patient’s recovery.
Please note that if you are feeling unwell, you should avoid visiting due to the risk of passing on an illness to others patients, visitors and staff.
Telephone: 01843 234415
