Question:
Please can you confirm if the critical care minimum data set will need to be submitted for the additional COVID surge beds?
Answer:
The Critical Care Minimum Data Set overview states:
“The Critical Care Minimum Data Set has been developed to be used in all units where Critical Care is provided. That is where the CRITICAL CARE LEVEL is National Code:
- 02 Patients requiring more detailed observation or intervention including support for a single failing organ system or post-operative care and those 'stepping down' from higher levels of care
or
- 03 Patients requiring advanced respiratory support alone or monitoring and support for two or more organ systems. This level includes all complex patients requiring support for multi-organ failure.”
This includes non-standard locations where the delivery if care is CRITICAL CARE LEVEL 2 or 3 and the duration of care is more than 4 hours. These would probably be categorised as code 90 (non-standard location using a ward area) or 91 non-standard location using the operating department, in CRITICAL CARE UNIT FUNCTION.
There is also UNIT BED CONFIGURATION which describes the mix of critical care bed types.
To summarise, if a WARD has been repurposed on a more permanent basis as a critical care unit, then the ward operational plan details for that ward and those beds should be re-categorised as for critical care and reported through the Commissioning Data Sets as normal critical care beds (i.e. the 4 hour rule doesn’t apply – it’s any length of time). If, however, it is a very temporary utilisation of a theatre recovery area as short term critical care, then don’t categorise the bed as critical care.
By ‘temporary’ we would say where it’s only known at very short notice that an area was going to be used for critical care delivery (say a patient suddenly required organ system support but there were no beds available in usual critical care unit). We wouldn’t say that if you are planning on setting beds up in non-standard locations and saving them for COVID patients (or for non-COVID patients with other conditions requiring critical care, if you are keeping COVID and non-COVID separate), that this would be classed as ‘temporary’.