Info sheets & links to resources that may be of help to those new to the critical care nursing environment.

New to ITU Info Sheets

For informational purposes to allow some pre-reading and act as an aide memoire if you are working in an ITU for the first time.

These are not intended to replace training and experience; please ensure your practice complies with relevant local policies. E&OE

For much more detailed information you might consider the book Critical Care Manual of Clinical Procedures and Competencies

Critical Care Handover Sheet

Handovers in critical care are detailed. Below is an example of the format I use for my handovers, capturing some obs and planning the shift. The blank template is available underneath as a PDF.

Example critical care handover

Please feel free to distribute, reuse, remix any of the New to ITU Info sheets, they are licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike CC BY-SA.

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to “copyleft” free and open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use. This is the license used by Wikipedia.”

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If you have any feedback or suggestions to add to this list, please tweet to @SamIAm_UK