Understanding how post-intensive care follow-up is delivered within the role of critical care outreach teams: a qualitative study protocol

Introduction Each year over 130 000 patients in the UK are discharged from an intensive care unit (ICU), with many experiencing poor outcomes such as in-hospital mortality, emergency ICU readmission and/or significant morbidity. Despite current national guidance and the availability of follow-up services, post-ICU care remains variable.

Critical Care Outreach Teams (CCOTs) are key in supporting this patient group, yet practice differs considerably. Recovery pathways have been successfully employed in other patient populations and are a potential option to standardise post-ICU care.

Understanding how care is currently delivered by CCOT throughout the UK is essential to inform future development of an evidence-based recovery pathway for this patient group. Our primary aim is to understand how post-ICU follow-up care is delivered within the wider remit of CCOT workloads.

Methods and analysis This is a pragmatic multicentre qualitative study of post-ICU follow-up care. The study will be split into two sub-studies: semi-structured interviews and ethnographic observations.