• Deborah Dawson and Andy McEwen.
• General Critical Care, 1st Floor St. Jame's Wing, St. George's Hospital NHS Trust, London, UK. deborah.dawson@stgeorges.nhs.uk
• Intensive Crit Care Nurs. 2006 Feb 1;22(1):4-11.

BackgroundCritical care nurse consultant roles have evolved against a background of service innovation that has resulted in the development of critical care outreach services. Despite compelling evidence that there was a serious problem with the management of critically ill patients in the ward environment, there is little evidence to support outreach as a concept or as a role for nurse consultants.AimsThe aims for this part of the study were to:MethodsA national postal survey of all 72 critical care nurse consultants in post in England by August 2003; response rate 72% (n = 52). All data was entered on to a computer anonymously and analysed using SPSS version 11.5. A factor analysis revealed a sub-set of nurse consultants who had a significantly greater involvement in outreach activity.ResultsCritical care nurse consultants have a high involvement in the development of care for critically ill patients outside the traditional boundaries of critical care. A sub-set emerged that has a significantly greater involvement in outreach activity. This includes roles such as working with an individual or team to develop their practice (whole group mean involvement score M = 4.45, outreach M = 4.88, p < 0.001); developing education outside the ICU/HDU (whole group M = 4.13, outreach M = 4.88, p < 0.001) and receiving nurse led referrals from the wards (whole group M = 3.92, outreach M = 4.81, p < 0.001).ConclusionsGiven the lack of evidence for outreach, organisations should consider the high level of involvement of the nurse consultant outside the traditional boundaries of the ICU/HDU.

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