ICNARC Case Mix Programme

Papworth Critical Care Unit (comprising the Cardiac Surgery Recovery Unit, CRU and the Intensive Care Unit, ICU) is planning to start participation in the ICNARC Case Mix Programme (CMP).

The Case Mix Programme (CMP) is an audit of patient outcomes from adult, general critical care units (intensive care and combined intensive care/high dependency units) covering England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Currently 93% of adult, general critical care units participate.

Other specialist units (neurosciences, multiple injury and cardiac) and high dependency units also participate. At its simplest:

  • Critical care units volunteer to join and collect case mix, patient outcome and activity data, according to our standardised dataset, on all the patients they admit to their unit.
  • These data are submitted to ICNARC.
  • ICNARC validates and analyses these data.
  • ICNARC compares the data from these patients with that of outcomes from other similar patients, other similar units and all the units in the CMP. It also shows trends over time.
  • These analyses form the electronic Data Analysis Report which covers a quarterly period of data.
  • The electronic Data Analysis Reports shows how the unit compares with others and helps the unit understand more about the care they deliver. It aims to assist them in decision-making, resource allocation and local performance management.