The Intensive Care National Audit & Research Centre (ICNARC) has an outstanding national and international reputation for clinical audit and clinical and health services research.

WHAT WE DO

We aim to improve care, the outcomes of care and the experiences of care. These improvements benefit patients and those who care for them.

We help critically ill patients and those who care for them by providing high quality information and feedback about the quality of intensive care at critical care units, hospitals, Trusts and Critical Care Networks.

We aim to support improvements in the way critical care is organised and practiced in the UK. We provide high quality information through our national clinical audits and our clinical research unit.

OUR AUDITS

Our National Audit Programme plays an important role in measuring and reporting on quality within health care settings.

Our current national clinical audits are well established and are both nationally and internationally renowned. The data collected as part of our audits are also used for research purposes.

We aim to:

– develop national clinical audits related to the sickest patients in hospitals;

– develop tools to measure the quality of care given to these patients, in the fairest way possible

– develop effective tools to report on the quality of care given to these patients

– positively influence the ways in which all national clinical audits are set up and run; and

– drive up standards in health care to benefit patients.

OUR RESEARCH

Substantial, multi-year grant funding supports our broad portfolio of national and international collaborative research studies, conducted within our UKCRC Registered Clinical Trials Unit.

Our research is conducted to influence and inform the policy and practice of adult and paediatric emergency and critical care in the UK and globally.

Our research portfolio is underpinned by cutting-edge, statistical/methodological research including novel clinical trial designs, methods for non-randomised comparisons, handling of missing data and statistical modelling.

Landmark publications have included:

– Wade et al. Effect of a Nurse-Led Preventive Psychological Intervention on Symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Among Critically Ill Patients: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA 2019; 321(7):665-675.

– Mouncey PR et al. Trial of early, goal-directed resuscitation for septic shock. N Engl J Med 2015; 372:1301-11.

– PRISM Investigators. Early, goal-directed therapy for septic shock – a patient-level meta-analysis. N Engl J Med 2017; 376:2223-34.

– Harvey SE et al. Trial of the route of early nutritional support in critically ill adults. N Engl J Med 2014; 371:1673-84.

Find out more about our work at www.icnarc.org