PEACH-SW

Provision of Enhanced And Critical Care for Higher Risk Patients in the South-West

PEACH-SW was a project run in the Peninsula by SWARM, in conjunction with STAR and SPARC in Severn and Wessex and overseen by the South West Critical Care Network. It aimed to evaluate the effect of hypothesised constrained critical care capacity on elective and emergency surgery, over a week long period in Nov 2023.

We captured 78% of all non cardiac adult inpatient surgery over the Network’s area, 24hrs a day for a week.

The project demonstrated that just 26% of patients with predicted high risk of mortality were actually admitted to critical care. Just 39% of patients referred were admitted to critical care.

These data describe constraints in access to postoperative and emergency enhanced/critical care in the South West of England, and that there is poor compliance with national guidance regarding the postoperative care location of patients with moderate or high risk of postoperative mortality.

The project was published in Anaesthesia in January 2025.

doi:10.1111/anae.16536