General Election 2024 Statement

Building an ICM service for the future

The NHS will be at the heart of election debate and a new government needs to address fundamental questions about the future of the NHS. As the professional and statutory body for ICM in the UK, FICM intends to advocate for and continue to lead the specialty towards delivery of a better future for intensive care, our patients, and our staff.

A new government should focus on addressing inequality, improve investment and encourage innovation.

We call on the next government to address imbalances in healthcare provision across the UK, alongside protecting hospital access and provision in all four nations. This can be achieved by:

• A commitment to achieving 10 intensive care beds per 100,000 population within the life of the next government
• Funding intensive care rehabilitation services across the UK 
• Improving digital infrastructures across the NHS to improve access and sharing of relevant patient data to assist in better quality of care and outcomes.

Workforce is the heart of the NHS and its commitment to patient care and any plan to improve the health service must start with improving support for NHS staff to do their jobs. We call on the next government to:

• Focus on delivering the recognised staffing levels we have described in GPICS to ensure patient safety alongside providing adequate, accessible support for staff welfare and wellbeing at work
• Invest in our hospitals with capital building projects so that critical care units can deliver services in buildings appropriate to modern healthcare
• Dedicate funding and support for staff to undertake research for our intensive care patient population and support our educators to deliver the education and training our diverse workforce needs
• Negotiate to resolve disputes over terms and conditions of service.

A new government should uphold the commitment to the Long-Term Workforce Plan in any spending review and use it as an exemplar of longer-term planning in other NHS policy decisions. We call on the next government to improve patient care through:

• A commitment to expand ICM national training numbers in line with the goal of providing ICM consultant-led care and leadership across all UK intensive care units
• Collaborative working across organisations and systems, funding of transfer services and adoption of new technologies to provide innovative solutions and remote support to services in smaller and more remote hospitals that struggle to attract and retain staff
• Addressing the climate emergency. We need clean air and water to improve population health and reduce the risks of critical illness including severe asthma and exacerbation of chronic airways disease
• Providing guaranteed funding for 24-hour funded critical care outreach services across all UK hospitals to offer the safeguards inherent in Martha’s Rule.