PICANet Annual Report 2013 - 2015
Source: data.gov.uk (2018-11-20)

Paediatric Intensive Care Audit - This data contains information on all admissions to Paediatric Intensive Care units in the UK and Ireland 2013-2015.

Paediatric Intensive Care 
Audit Network
Lay Report
10 of the 34 PICUs met the current 
nurse staffing standards in 2015. This 
has increased from the 5 units reported 
in 2014. 
Paediatric Intensive Care (PIC) in 
the United Kingdom and Ireland – the picture for 2015
PICUs sometimes have to employ agency or bank nursing staff.
On a midweek night and a weekend in November, in London, 18% 
of NHS nursing staff on duty were employed from agency or from 
the nurse bank. This has reduced from 27% in 2014. 
There were 19,965 admissions of children aged under 16 to a 
Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) in 2015. This is almost the same 
as the last two years. 
In the UK, for every 1,000 children under one year of age, eleven 
needed admission to PICU.
Older children were much less likely to need PICU, with less than 1 
per 1,000 children over 5 years of age needing PICU each year.
For children under one year of age who were admitted to PICU, 59% 
were boys and 41% were girls. 
children admitted 
to PICU every day
55
Staffing 
Your Experience Counts
The Empowerment of Parents in the Intensive Care (EMPATHIC 30) 
questionnaire, which collects information about the experiences of parents 
and carers during the admission of their child to paediatric intensive care, 
was distributed to many parents of children as they were being discharged 
from PICU. 
In 2015 the vast majority of parents were very happy with the care in PICU 
and they rated the performance of doctors and nurses very highly. Doctors’ 
performance was rated as 9 or 10 by 90% of those completing the 
questionnaire and nurses’ performance was rated as 9 or 10 by 95% of 
parents.

29% of the children attending PICU during 2015 had a respiratory illness as 
their main reason for admission.
65% of the children admitted to PICU received invasive ventilation to help 
with breathing during their stay. 
In 2015 PICANet started to collect data about children receiving high flow 
oxygen therapy. 13% of the children treated in PICU received a total of 8,232 
days of high flow oxygen therapy.
How long does to take to get to PICU? 
Activity in Paediatric Intensive Care
Some children require transfer from their local hospital to another 
hospital with a PICU. 
In 2015, the specialist paediatric intensive care transports teams 
completed 6,375 journeys. 88% of these journeys were for emergency 
admissions.
Discharge outcome
96% of children 
admitted to PICU 
care survive to 
discharge
PICU
Readmission
Almost 2% of 
children discharged 
from PICU require 
readmission within 
48 hours
PICU
Some children have to travel a long way to get to a PICU and from the 
time the paediatric intensive care specialist transport teams confirm 
that a child needs to be transported to PICU there is a PICS standard 
measuring how frequently the team arrive at the child’s bedside 
within 3 hours. 
In 78% of transport events the transport team arrived at the bedside 
within three hours in 2015. 
The number of days a PICU bed is occupied has increased by 3% over 
the last 3 years. Beds were occupied for 132,018 days in 2015.
Most bed days (55%) were used by children under the age of 1 year.  
Over the last 3 years around 20% of children stayed on the same PICU 
for seven or more days and around 10% of the children admitted to 
PICU received over half (58%) of the bed days. 

PICUs in 2015
Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright 
and database right 2015
There are 34 PICUs in the UK and Republic of Ireland who report to PICANet.
The largest unit had 1,340 admissions while 12 units had fewer than 500 admissions in 2015.
PICANet reports on the “risk adjusted” mortality of each PICU. This takes into account how 
sick the children are at the time of admission to paediatric intensive care. 
PICANet has found that there is no statistical reason to be concerned about the 
performance of any of the PICUs reporting to PICANet in 2015. 
Initial review of the figures suggested possible concern about the mortality rate in one 
PICU. However, following an extensive internal and external investigation, the quality of 
care provided on the PICU in question was not found to be at fault.

What is PICANet?
The Paediatric Intensive Care Audit Network (PICANet), which is run jointly by the 
Universities of Leicester and  Leeds, collects information about all children admitted 
to the paediatric (children’s) intensive care service in the United Kingdom and 
Ireland.
PICANet collects exactly the same information on all children cared for in paediatric 
intensive care units and by the specialist paediatric intensive care transport services. 
This information is used to help find the best ways to treat and care for very sick 
children and to plan and provide future paediatric intensive care services.
Additional information about PICANet and the 2016 Annual Report is available at 
www.picanet.org.uk
Recommendations
• Commissioners should ensure that sufficient resources are allocated to cover the 
increasing activity and workload in PICU
• Alternative settings for the provision of care for children with long term needs i.e. 
ventilation should be investigated
• Commissioners should work closely with PICUs to ensure adequate staffing levels as 
recommended in the UK Paediatric Intensive Care Standards for the Care of Critically Ill 
Children (see below)
• Nurse Managers should ensure that the reduction in the use of agency and bank nurses 
is maintained and continues to improve
• PICANet needs to work with national and international partners to investigate new ways 
of measuring quality of care in PICUs as the patients treated in PICU today have more 
long-term and complex illnesses
This lay report was written in November 2016 by the PICANet team and Shelley Marsh, Lay Representative, 
PICANet PIC Families Group.
The UK Paediatric Intensive Care Society (PICS) produces a set of Standards for the Care of Critically Ill Children that cover 
the whole patient pathway including referral, specialist transport and admission to PICU. PICANet works closely with PICS to 
measure standards which relate to the referral, transport, admission and staffing datasets and also the care of the child and
family during paediatric intensive care.
Complete and accurate information is vital for PICANet to help doctors, nurses and 
commissioners to improve paediatric intensive care services