Home > For patients > Departments and services > Children's Services > Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU)

Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU)

Visiting| | Contact us|

Admissions in the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit are always a very stressful time for parents and close relatives: we are keen to support the family as a whole. Colleagues in Social Services and Clinical Psychology provide us with valuable support.

Children requiring intensive care support and with ages ranging from birth until their sixteenth birthday can be cared for in the PICU. The reasons for admission are varied. The main groups are:

Medical

• Respiratory
• Neurology
• Cardiology
• Infection / sepsis
• Oncology
• Endocrinology

Surgical

• Cardiothoracic surgery
• Neurosurgery
• Trauma
• Neonatal surgery
• Paediatric surgery
• Craniofacial
• Ear, nose and throat

Visiting information

Parents and carers may visit whenever they wish. Parents can decide who else may visit, but please remember that no more than two visitors at a time are allowed. Also, we are unable to accept flowers in this unit. We try to find accommodation for parents, although families sometimes have to share accommodation when demand is high.

About PICU

PICU is staffed by a multidisciplinary team of anaesthetists, paediatricians, nurses, physiotherapists and dieticians, and is dedicated to the care of critically ill children from Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire. It has six beds.

The unit is capable of delivering the full range of intensive care therapies, including advanced techniques like High Frequency Oscillatory Ventilation, allowing us to provide specialist care to our patients.

The Paediatric Retrieval Team provides a safe environment to transport critically ill patient to the John Radcliffe Hospital. The service includes expert telephone advice to colleagues stabilising critically ill children in District General Hospitals.

Our service includes High Dependency Care beds for those children that are not critically ill but require close monitoring.