Improving maintenance of critical care land and aeromedical transfer equipment

The aim was to assess the content and state of repair of equipment carried for transfer of critical care patients to other hospitals. By chance, several items of date-expired stock were identified in the transfer kit whilst moving a patient to a tertiary centre. This raised the possibility of a more extensive problem with the equipment bags. Due to the geographical location of our district general hospital we undertake around 70 transfers of critical care patients to other hospitals per year (16% by air) and it is clearly important that our equipment is well maintained for these journeys.