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Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine guidance on COVID-19 recovery services

The Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine (FICM) has published a position statement and provisional guidance for a national framework for future critical illness recovery services.

The document points out that a proportion of patients who have survived COVID-19 critical illness will likely have acquired substantial new deficits during their critical illness, and these sequelae may require specialised bed-based rehabilitation services and ongoing specialist rehabilitation in the community.

The proportion of critically ill patients requiring complex rehabilitation after COVID-19 critical illness is likely to be in the order of 30 per cent rather than 5 per cent, as was initially predicted. 

Critical illness sequelae to consider in survivors of COVID-19 criticial illness include persistent lung injury, steroid cumulative effects on bones/gastrointestinal tract, tracheostomy-related injury, hyperglycaemic cumulative effect, kidney disease and psychological issues.

The Faculty recommends that follow-up services should be configured with the potential to run a ‘hub and spoke’ network of referrals between uni- or multi-professional outpatient services and larger multi-disciplinary team outpatient services. New services may need to be established where none have existed before, the document states.

When clinics are beginning from scratch, FICM proposes the option of grouping the clinic with an established follow-up service, so that all aspects of rehabilitation can be accessible to patients in that hospital group.


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