Critical care could be overwhelmed by swine flu
Monday July 27th, 2009
Critical care beds in England could be overwhelmed by the swine flu pandemic, experts have warned.
Demand for beds could outstrip supply by up to 130 per cent, according to Dr Ari Ercole and colleagues at Cambridge University, UK.
In a new study, published in the journal Anaesthesia, the team projected the critical care demand for dealing with pandemic influenza H1N1.
Dr Ercole explains: "Any predictions need to be based on the most accurate information available. Based on figures provided by the ten regional health authorities we can see that hospitals would face massive excess demand even if the pandemic lasted an optimistic twelve weeks.
"Paediatric intensive care facilities for children under 15 would be quickly exhausted, as they make up ten per cent of current provision but could face 30 per cent of the demand for pandemic related beds.
"Early experience of the present strain suggests that the attack rate is particularly high in the young and that this virus may severely compromise the immune systems of people who contract it."
The team suggest that older children could be managed in adult critical care units to allow "resource optimisation".
Full results appear in the journal Anaesthesia. Hospitals on the South East Coast, and in the South West, East of England and East Midlands are likely to be the worst hit.
Dr Jonathan Handy of the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, London, UK, commented an editorial: "The worst case could exceed current capacity by an order of magnitude. All acute trusts should have already developed local flu plans to include a 100 per cent increase in critical care capacity."
Ercole, A. et al. Modelling the impact of an influenza A/H1N1 pandemic on critical care demand from early pathogenicity data: the case for sentinel reporting. Anaesthesia, published online July 23, 2009.
Handy, J. M. Critical care bed capacity during the flu pandemic: implications for anaesthetic and critical care departments. Anaesthesia, published online July 23, 2009.
Tags: Flu & Viruses | NHS | Nursing & Midwifery | UK News
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