Transport of critically ill children to paediatric intensive care units in the UK and Ireland: 2013-2022

Objective: To explore the trends and changes in the transport of children to paediatric intensive care units (PICUs) between 2013 and 2022.

Design: Retrospective analysis of routinely collected data.

Patients: Children transported for care in a PICU in the UK and Ireland aged<16 years.

Interventions: None.

Measurements and main results: There were 43 058 transports to a PICU involving 36 438 children from 2013 to 2022 with the majority of children requiring only one transport. The number of transports increased from 4131 (2013) to 4792 (2022). Over the study period the percentage of children aged under 1 year who were transported decreased from 50.2% to 45.2% and similarly, the percentage who were invasively ventilated also decreased from 81.1% to 70.2%. Conversely, the use of non-invasive ventilation during transports increased slightly from 4.0% to 7.0%. The percentage of transports where a parent was able to accompany the child increased over time (2013: 66.2% to 2019: 74.9%), although there were reductions due to the COVID-19 pandemic and requirements for social distancing (2020: 52.4%).

Conclusions: We have demonstrated an increased use of specialist paediatric transport services and changes in the PICU population over time. Routine data collection from the transport services provide a means to measure improvements and changes over time in the service provided to critically ill children and young people who need transport to the PICU.