Access to healthcare and mental health services for critical illness survivors

Hypothesis: We hypothesise that clinical data collected during critical illness could help identify patients susceptible to encephalopathy. If this is the case, it could be used to identify individuals at high risk for developing cognitive decline and mental health issues, allowing early and targeted access to appropriate clinical support services and improving long-term health and quality of life. Aim: We will create a new dataset containing data routinely collected in the ICU, such as patients' diagnoses, the severity of illness and length of stay. These records will be linked to NHS post-acute care data to: i) Explore which clinical features of patients during critical illness may correlate with long-term cognition and mental ill health. ii) Develop a predictive model to determine patients who are at the highest risk of developing psychological ill health following a critical illness. Exploring characteristics of 3 groups of patients: those with and without symptoms of mental ill health following a critical illness with matched patients admitted to a hospital not needing treatment in an intensive care unit. iii) Assess the impact of medications administered in ICU on long-term outcomes, specifically those with a high anticholinergic burden and cumulative intravenous opioid exposure12, 16 (where benefit vs harm is unclear). iv) Establish the number and characteristics of patients accessing cognitive and mental health services following critical illness, giving an indication of the service gap. v) Identify total healthcare contacts/resource use following critical illness and associated costs.