Our history

Health care providers working in critical care identified the need for high quality information (data). They needed this information to record the results of treatment and to help them develop the most effective ways of organising care and treating patients. This need for high quality information led to the establishment of ICNARC.

Key milestones

 1990

• Intensive Care Society's APACHE II study in Britain and Ireland completed (Outcome comparisons of intensive care units in Great Britain and Ireland using the APACHE II method) 

1991

• Proposal to set up a national centre for comparative audit and evaluative research in intensive care submitted to the Department of Health by Professor Kathy Rowan, on behalf of the Intensive Care Society

1992

• Intensive Care Society's APACHE II study published  

1993

• Financial support obtained from the Department of Health and the Welsh Health Common Services Authority for two years to support the establishment of ICNARC

1994

• ICNARC set up to provide an independent, national resource for the monitoring and evaluation of intensive care 

• Case Mix Programme (CMP) set up to audit patient outcomes from adult, general critical care units in England, Wales and Northern Ireland 

1995

• First group of critical care units join the Case Mix Programme  

1998

• First Annual Meeting of the Case Mix Programme 

1999

• Medical Research Council funded a study to develop and validate the optimum method for risk adjustment of hospital mortality for adult intensive care in the United Kingdom 

2002

• First non-commercial multicentre randomised controlled trial in critical care - an evaluation of the clinical and cost-effectiveness of pulmonary artery flotation catheters in intensive care (PAC-Man), funded by the NHS R&D HTA Programme 

2004

• One funded research grant awarded by the NIHR Service Delivery & Organisation (SDO) Programme - Outreach

2006

• 500,000 patients in the Case Mix Programme Database 

2007

• ICNARC model published (the most accurate predictor of mortality for UK patients) 

2008

• One funded research grant awarded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Programme – FIRE 

2009

• Clinical Trials Unit awarded provisional registration by the UK Clinical Research Collaboration (UKCRC)

• Five funded research grants awarded by the NIHR HTA Programme - RAIN, CALORIES, ProMISe, IVIG, SwiFT

• National Cardiac Arrest Audit (NCAA) set up (national clinical audit of in-hospital cardiac arrests in the UK and Ireland - a joint initiative between the Resuscitation Council (UK) and ICNARC) 

2011

• 1 million patients in the Case Mix Programme Database 

• One funded research grant awarded by the NIHR Health Services & Delivery Research (HS&DR) Programme – Risk modelling
  

2012

• Clinical Trials Unit awarded full registration by the UKCRC 

• One funded research grant awarded by the NIHR HS&DR Programme – FREE
  

• Move to new office in Holborn, Central London due to expansion  

2013

• One funded research grant awarded by the NIHR HS&DR Programme – POPPI

2014

• 1.5 million patients in the Case Mix Programme Database