Fig 4. Critical illness milestones in the “whole patient journey”.

After initial hospital assessment, patients may require admission to a hospital ward or directly to an ICU. In addition, hospital ward inpatients may subsequently have an unplanned ICU admission if their clinical condition deteriorates. The three critical illness milestones when information sharing between the ICU and the patient’s GP should occur are 1 (unplanned ICU admission), 2 (patient death in ICU) and 3 (ICU discharge to hospital ward).