We look after people with potentially life-threatening conditions. You'll come to critical care if you need close and constant monitoring, special equipment to support your organs, and medicine to keep your body functioning normally while you recover.

We see patients with a wide range of conditions, but you'll usually come to critical care due to problems with one or more of your organ systems, particularly your lungs (respiratory system) or your heart (cardiac system).

We look after three intensive care wards in Southampton General Hospital - the general, cardiac and neurosciences intensive care units.

We also have the surgical and medical high dependency units, which are two high dependency wards for patients who are seriously ill but don't need to be in intensive care.

Critical care includes several other departments providing emergency or critical care services around the hospital. Find out about the outreach team and the resuscitation team.

Ongoing education

Critical care is a highly specialised area of work, and our staff are trained to react quickly and use state-of-the-art equipment to care for very ill patients.

We also provide study days, courses and individual sessions to train clinical staff from all around the Trust in looking after very ill patients. We work to make sure that all staff can spot and react to a deteriorating patient early. This makes it more likely that the patient will make a good recovery, and help them avoid needing emergency or intensive treatment.

Patient information

We have two leaflets that you may find useful: