Research / Projects

New Retrievals Dataset

In collaboration with Allan Wardaugh (Cardiff PICU) a prototype will be launched shortly. This is a new development which will give us evidence on standards of retrieval across PICU - see proposal for more details.

The South West Audit for Criticall Ill Children (SWACIC)

The latest SWACIC Annual Report is now available to view

or view the latest SWACIC Newsletter

CHiP Trial

CHiP is a major clinical trial examining the effect of tight glycaemic control on outcome in critically ill children admitted to paediatric intensive care. The chief investigator is Dr Duncan Macrae, Director of the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit at the Royal Brompton Hospital. The trial is being conducted in 10 major paediatric intensive care units in collaboration with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. PICANet are represented on the Project Management Group and are actively involved in enabling efficient data collection. Final results are expected to be published mid 2012.
Further details can be found at: http://www.hta.ac.uk/project/1533.asp.

The trial website can be found at http://www.chip-trial.org.uk

The protocol from this trial has been published and can be viewed on the BMC Pediatrics website.

UK PICU Staffing Survey

The aim of the study is to determine the impact of changing workforce patterns in UK paediatric intensive care services on staff practice and patient outcomes. This project is funded by the NHS R&D Service Delivery and Organisation programme and run in collaboration with the University of Aberdeen. For further information, see the survey's webpage.

Consent Study

Within the NHS, the Data Protection Act requires patients’ consent for the disclosure of patient-identifiable information for purposes not directly related to treatment, including external clinical audit.

In 2002/3, under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2001 for England and Wales the independent statutory Patient Information Advisory Group (PIAG) granted PICANet temporary support for the collection of patient-identifiable data without consent, on the condition that the viability of taking consent was assessed.

PICANet undertook a study of the feasibility of obtaining signed consent for submission of patient-identifiable information to our national clinical audit aiming to identify factors influencing the consent process and its success. The study has been published in the British Medical Journal or view a summary of the paper.

Refractive Convulsive Status Epilepticus (RCSE Study)

PICANet are coordinating the collection of data for this important study, funded by the Epilepsy Research Foundation, into the incidence, aetiology, treatment and outcome of children admitted to PICU in refractory convulsive status epilepticus. The study is running from January 1st 2008 – December 31st 2009 in conjunction with Richard Appleton and Tim Maitland, Consultant Paediatric Neurologists, Alder Hey Children’s Hospital and Manchester Children’s Hospital respectively.

Twenty-one units initially agreed to take part. However we would welcome any additional units who are interested in participating. We expect that individual units will only admit a small number of children who fulfil the inclusion criteria for the study therefore in order to collect the total numbers of cases required we need to recruit cases from as many units as possible.

A single questionnaire requires completion, for all admitted children fulfilling the study criteria and the data can be extracted retrospectively from the medical records so there is still time to become involved.  Each participating PICU will receive £25.00 per child for whom a completed questionnaire is returned to the PICANet Leicester office. Contact Caroline Lamming for further information.

Acute Respiratory Failure Audit (ARF)

This is now on hold as we are investigating Swine Flu in place of this.

CATheter Infections in CHildren (CATCH)

The CATCH trial is a three-arm randomised controlled clinical trial examining the effect of using either heparin coated, antibiotic impregnated or standard central venous catheters on catheter related infections. More information can be found at: http://www.hta.ac.uk/1867.