Patient at risk!

Recent Department of Health-led reviews have recommended wide-ranging changes in the provision of critical care which will affect most physicians. Critically ill patients on general wards are too often missed, and intervention is often too late. Early warning scoring systems can improve outcome by detecting critical illness earlier and by acting as triage tools. The re-classification of care, levels 0-3, means that physicians and intensivists will increasingly work together to provide the level of care required for our sickest patients.