We are pleased to announce that the PICANet Annual Report 2021 is now published.

This can be downloaded from our Annual Reporting and Publications page.

The PICANet Annual Report includes the Tables and Figures, Appendices and Supplementary Special Chapters:

1. COVID-19 and PIMS-TS in PICU
2. COVID-19 Staffing Survey
3. Diabetic ketoacidosis in English PICUs: the impact of COVID-19

New for the 2021 Annual Report, is an infographic to highlight some of key findings.

The PICANet Annual Report 2021, covering the period Jan 2018 – Dec 2020, will be published on our website on 13 January 2022. Please keep a look out!

PICANet is moving to a more frequent reporting schedule for COVID-19 and PIMS-TS cases from units. Returns will now be due weekly. The PICANet team will continue to advise of these dates by email.

The upcoming dates for returns are now on Mondays 10^th (by Tuesday 11^th January at the latest), 17^th and 24^th January 2022.

This change is due to the increase in reported numbers and to monitor the Omicron variant in PICU populations. The change will remain in place until further notice and will be reviewed if there is a change in national infection rates.

If you have any queries please do not hesitate to get in touch with the team via picanet@leeds.ac.uk

Thank you again to the PICU teams for their ongoing hard work.

PICANet, based at the Universities of Leeds and Leicester, will be closed during the academic Christmas holiday.

Support from the PICANet team will be available up until 17^th December 2021.

If any queries, including technical support queries, are received after 17^th December, we will respond to them when our offices re-open on 4^th January 2022.

Thank you and season’s greetings from the PICANet Team.

To notify all units that Monday 13^th December 2021 (today) will be the last COVID/PIMS-TS reporting date of the year. Due to Christmas, Monday 27^th December will be skipped and your next report will be due on Tuesday 4^th January 2022 (a day later due to the bank holiday). You will receive a reminder as usual for this. After this, fortnightly Monday reporting will resume, with the next return date after being Monday 17^th January.

Please let us know if you foresee any issues with your return and thank you to those who have queried this. With thanks as well for your ongoing efficient reporting during this time.

The COVID-19 II Custom Data Collection tab is now available on PICANet web to collect data for admissions to PICU from 13 December 2021 meeting one of the following criteria:

1. Children aged less than 18 years clinically diagnosed with PIMS-TS (who may also have a positive COVID-19 PCR test or a positive antibody test); or
2. Children aged less than 18 years for whom a diagnosis of COVID-19 is confirmed by laboratory diagnosis during or immediately prior to admission to a paediatric intensive care unit (PICU); or
3. A child aged less than 18 years with suspected or potential COIVID-19 vaccine- related complications (e.g. myocarditis/pericarditis) (not PIMS-TS or COVID-19 confirmed by PCR).

Please find the revised data collection form and dataset definitions manual support completion of the data on the COVID-19 page.

If you have any queries please do not hesitate to get in touch with the team via picanet@leeds.ac.uk and PICANet Research Nurse Lyn Palmer (slp60@leicester.ac.uk).

The PICANet Team are excited to announce that the first virtual PICANet Annual Meeting will be held on 26^th January 2022. The half-day will run between 9:50 and 13:20, and will be held via MS Teams.

Registration for this year’s Annual Meeting is now open and can be accessed here. All PICU staff and collaborators are invited to attend. Registration is free.

PICANet will present findings from the 2021 Annual Report, update on developments, and there will be a range of guest speakers. We hope you will enjoy the morning.

If you have any questions, please contact the team.

We look forward to seeing you in January.

Thank you.

The PICANet Team

Further to our announcement that PICANet will be updating the current COVID-19 Custom Data Collection to COVID-19 II, it is now anticipated that this will be launched on Monday 13^th December 2021 unless otherwise stated. Thank you for your patience as we work to streamline the data collection.

Coming soon: 

PICANet will be updating the current COVID-19 Custom Data Collection to COVID-19 II. The Custom Data Collection has been revised with input from clinicians, taking into account feedback from the original COVID-19 data collection, and is more streamlined for quicker data collection/entry. It also has the addition of the variable: ‘Potential COVID-19 vaccine related complications’ as a reason for reporting.  To aid data collection of the new revised COVID-19 II Custom Data Collection, a revised dataset definitions manual, and FAQ page, will all be available to download shortly.

It is anticipated that this will be launched on Monday 6^th December 2021 unless otherwise stated.

On the 15^th October 2021, the Paediatric Critical Care Society (PCCS) released their 6^th Edition of the PCCS Quality Standards for the Care of Critically Ill or Injured Children. Two of these standards relate to the timely submission of admission, referral, and transport data to PICANet. The new PCCS standards 2021, have reduced this submission time of data to PICANet from three months to two months:

L3-702- Data for submission to PICANet should be collected and submitted as soon as possible and no later than two months after discharge from the PCC unit.

T-701 – data for referral and transport should be collected and submitted as soon as possible and no later than two months after the transfer.

PICANet will implement this change using a staged approach. At first, email validations between now and the 31^st December will show both the two and three month data validation queries for your information. From the 1^st January 2022 PICANet will then only show the two month validation queries, and we will be expecting you to meet these standards.

We will of course work closely with units if there are any problems or issues that arise. If you have any queries please do not hesitate to get in touch with the team via picanet@leeds.ac.uk.