MORE patients are surviving spells in Wales’ critical care units but more progress is required, concludes a new report.

The annual report for the critically ill, issued by the Welsh Government and NHS Wales, reveals a current 83 per cent survival rate, compared to 79 per cent in 2011-12.

Transfers of critically ill patients between hospitals are safer, with 79.4 per cent of transfers graded good or excellent in 2015, against 65.4 per cent in 2009.

And the number of patients admitted who test positive for superbugs MRSA and Clostridium Difficile has fallen.

The report stresses however, that tackling problems with staffing is vital to enabling further improvements.

Reducing the average length of stay for patients is another target, as is bringing down the number of delayed discharges to other wards.

Wales has one of the lowest amounts of critical care beds per 100,000 population in Europe, at 5.9, less than half the average.

In Wales, Aneurin Bevan University Health Board has the fewest per 100,000 population, at just four.

The report highlights initiatives carried out in Wales to improve critical care provision.

In Gwent, the health board is introducing a second tier of junior critical care medical staff at the Royal Gwent Hospital, to be supported by advanced critical care practitioners, who the report states “will offer a special, unique skill set to the health board which will improve the level of care.”

An emergency medical retrieval and transfer

service has been set up, improving timeliness, and on-site expertise in critical care “at the roadside.”

It also helps provide emergency critical care aid to those in need in hospitals without a critical care unit, such as Ysbyty Ystrad Fawr at Ystrad Mynach, and can potentially transfer patients to a hospital with one.

A volunteer service has also been set up at the Royal Gwent Hospital, with previous patients visiting and talking with families.

A diary project begun several years ago at the Royal Gwent, in which doctors, nurses and families are encouraged to detail patients’ progress, to help them cope afterwards, has also now been set up at Cardiff’s University Hospital of Wales.