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The Paediatric Critical Care Unit at the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital is one of the largest children’s critical care units in the UK. It has 27 beds (increasing to 33 in the winter) split between two areas – the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) and Paediatric High Dependency Unit (PHDU). It is co-located with a regional burns unit.
The unit admits around 1400 babies and children a year requiring highly invasive support and treatment either as an emergency admission or after planned specialist surgery. We treat patients from birth to 16 years of age but occasionally older if they are still receiving specialist paediatric input.
Around half of our children are admitted as an emergency – many of whom are transported by our regional transportation service, North West and North Wales Paediatric Transport Service (NWTS). Some children have planned admissions, usually after major surgery.
Our patients come from Greater Manchester, the North West of England and also further afield from all over the UK and abroad. This reflects the wide range of specialist services that can be provided for critically ill children in our unit.
We offer support and services for our colleagues in specialities such as trauma, neurosurgery, general surgery, haematology/oncology and bone-marrow transplantation, neurology, metabolic medicine, renal, spinal surgery, ENT, respiratory, cardiology and endocrinology. We also work closely with our neonatal colleagues in St Mary’s Hospital, and the Adult ICUs within our Trust. Children requiring cardiac surgery are transferred to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool.
Our staff work on both PICU and PHDU allowing escalation and de-escalation of care to be relatively seamless according to the child’s clinical need. In addition, we will provide support, when required, to children requiring critical care in other areas of the hospital.