Intensive care: measurement and audit in an expensive growth area of medicine

Intensive care historically shared with renal dialysis a relative shortfall in the UK and widely (wildly?) divergent provision in the regions. However, research on measurement of need was very different, with a focus on clinical audit. Priority was given to assessing how much the performance of different units could be attributed to differing intakes of patients through complex measuring tools such as the APACHE II score. While policy bodies welcomed this approach, policy guidelines in the 1990s relied most heavily on dissemination of "best practice", in any case raising standards through emulation within the UK rather than raising funding to European levels.