Speakers
Professor David McWilliams
Sarah Vollam
Anna Vogiatzis
Paul Mouncey
Stream 3
Following the publication of the National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death (NCEPOD) report in 2025, this session will examine how its recommendations are being translated into practice across UK critical care. While the report provides clear direction for improving patient outcomes, the extent and pace of implementation varies nationally.
This session will explore progress to date, highlighting examples of successful change as well as the persistent barriers that continue to challenge delivery. In particular, we will highlight and consider health inequalities in access to rehabilitation, examining how variation in provision impacts patient recovery and long-term outcomes.
We will also look ahead, considering how the critical care community can accelerate improvement by harnessing large-scale data sources such as ICNARC to monitor impact, drive accountability, and support service development.
David McWilliams is a Professor of Critical Care and Rehabilitation and Clinical Academic Physiotherapist at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust and Coventry University's Centre for Care Excellence. He is the chair of the physiotherapy working group for the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine, and Chair of the Intensive Care Society National Rehabilitation Collaborative. David was a member of the guideline development group for the NICE guideline ‘Critical Illness rehabilitation’ and led an NCEPOD study into rehabilitation and recovery following critical illness. David is recognised as an international expert on critical care physiotherapy and rehabilitation, regularly presenting both nationally and internationally on the subject.
Sarah is a Senior Post-Doctoral Researcher in the University of Oxford Critical Care Research Group. She co-leads the NIHR-funded Enhanced Recovery After Critical Care (ERACC) programme of research, aiming to design and test an enhanced care pathway for critical care survivors.
Sarah has a clinical ICU nursing background. She is an outgoing Associate Editor for Nursing in Critical Care and Deputy Chair of the Intensive Care Society's National Rehabilitation Collaborative. She is also a Visiting Fellow at Oxford Brookes University.
Paul is Co-Director, and Clinical Trials Unit Director, at the Intensive Care National Audit & Research Centre (ICNARC) . Paul is an epidemiologist with over 20 years’ experience of conducting multicentre randomised clinical trials, initially in Cancer, but at ICNARC focussed in adult and paediatric critical care. Paul is currently the Joint-Chief Investigator for the UK-ROX trial (NIHR130508), which is a highly challenging trial within the critical care setting, using extensive data collected routinely by the national clinical audit for critical care (Case Mix Programme) database.
Paul is the lead for the Development of an adaptive platform trial in paediatric critical care and sits on the REMAP-CAP International Trial Steering Committee. He sits on both the NIHR Critical Care National Specialty Specialty Group, which has responsibility for overseeing delivery of studies on the NIHR portfolio for critical care, and the UK Critical Care Research Group.
Andrew Bates is a critical care nurse and Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Southampton and University Hospital Southampton. He has recently completed an NIHR-funded, multicentre mixed-methods study investigating the use of trauma-focused psychological therapy for traumatic stress following critical illness.
He has been awarded three NIHR fellowships, and his research focuses on the longer-term mental health consequences of critical illness, with a particular emphasis on investigating how established trauma-focused interventions may be adapted for use following critical illness. His work also explores the neurobiological underpinnings of traumatic stress, including a functional MRI study, and he is investigating the role of the gut microbiome and metabolomic phenotyping in mental health recovery after intensive care.
In addition, he is part of a multidisciplinary team examining the development and predictors of cognitive and mental ill health following critical illness, as well as access to healthcare and mental health services. He is a member of the Intensive Care Society’s Nurse Professional Advisory Group.