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A national Infection in Critical Care Quality Improvement Programme for England: A survey of stakeholder priorities and preferences

Introduction Severe infection is one of the most common causes of critical illness. Healthcare-associated infections complicating critical illness bring the additional challenge of multidrug resistance. However, England lacks a national surveillance system for infections in intensive care units. Prior experience with surveillance systems suggests that they are most effective when placed within a collaborative quality improvement framework. Method A national survey of adult, paediatric and neonatal intensive care doctors, nurses, microbiologists and infection control practitioners was undertaken throughout the UK to determine stakeholder engagement. Results Of 763 respondents (80% ICU physicians; 8% nurses) from 158 hospital Trusts across the UK, 721 (94.4%) supported establishing a surveillance system; 63.5% preferred that data collection be mandatory; 47.5% considered that the work should be undertaken within existing resources. Respondents prioritised catheter-associated and multidrug resistant infections. Free-text responses demonstrated strong support for using the data for epidemiological information and benchmarking for quality improvement. Discussion The survey provides a satisfactory foundation for establishing a national surveillance system for infection prevention and control in critical care in England.