About Us

Access to and quality of acute and critical services is a global healthcare priority. Improved access to water, sanitation and childhood vaccinations alongside growing urbanisation and changing lifestyles has meant global population health priorities are evolving. Inequalities in access to surgical, acute medical and trauma services are now leading causes of death and suffering globally.

In 2013 a small group of researchers recognised the need for greater investment in these health services and in the systems and expertise to enable evaluation of care. Together they established the first national electronic critical care registry enabling continuous evaluation of critical care services in a lower middle income country. Contemporaneously to this, they developed practical multidisciplinary training programmes to address the deficit in opportunities for specialist training in acute care that exists in many LMICs. Recognising these as common challenges faced by researchers and clinicians in many LMIC settings, the methods they developed led to the founding of NICST.

Now an international team of researchers and clinicians to develop unique expertise in health informatics, and digital innovation, supporting the implementation of acute care surveillance in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. NICST has gone on to undertake clinical research, strengthen health systems and capacity building projects in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sierra Leone and Malawi. Currently NICST partners with academic and grassroots organisations who share a common goal for improving the quality of healthcare internationally. NICST supports individuals wishing to pursue academic and clinical training.

NICST is funded by private donations and international research grants.

The NICST team includes postdoctoral researchers, PhD students, MSc graduates, and frontline clinicians and patients. 

We are fortunate to have the expertise of international researchers for academic guidance.
Our academic partner institutions include,

• The Wellcome Trust Mahidol Oxford Tropical Research Unit, Thailand 
• University of Oxford, UK 
• University College London, UK 
• The University of Birmingham, UK 
• Amsterdam Institute of Global Health and Development, Netherlands
• University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka
• University of Colombo, Sri Lanka 
• University of Amsterdam, Netherlands

Our clinical and research collaborators include

• European Society of Intensive Care Medicine, Global Intensive Care Group

• Intensive Care Society

  Intensive Care Society

  A global partnership between NICST and ICS was established to build multi-professional capacity for international training, research and service improvement through mutual knowledge exchange, professional fellowships, network events and academic partnerships.

  For nearly 50 years the ICS has stood firmly behind the exceptional talent in critical care across the UK. The country’s leading multi-professional critical care charity, the society is dedicated to providing much needed education, funding cutting edge research, and highlighting areas of development though its unique awards programmes.

  The ICS’s members benefit from thought provoking blogs by leading critical care professionals, evidence based Guidelines and Standards by recognised experts, a quarterly PubMed accredited journal, JICS, regular seminars/events throughout the year, CUSIC and FICE accreditations, and the annual State of the Art conference.

  The objectives of the NICST/ICS partnership are:

  • 1. To provide the multiprofessional critical care community with opportunities for global exchanges to develop tacit and explicit knowledge including generic and transferable skills as well as clinical skills in low and low-middle income countries.
    2. To create opportunity for international research and service improvement as prioritised by the international global health agenda and by the stakeholders within both the ICS and NICST and their partner organisations.
    3. To facilitate an ‘Out of Programme Experience Fellowship’ for intensivist trainees in critical care and global health improvement.
    4. To advance the availability of systems to strengthen capacity for evaluation of critical care services within both the UK and collaborating Low and lower middle income countries (LMICs) primarily in but not limited to South Asia.
    5. To facilitate greater public and patient engagement in activities of the collaboration.
    6. To promote the development and implementation of national critical care registries.

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• Netherlands Intensive Care Evaluation (The Dutch critical care registry)
• The Australian and New Zealand Dialysis and Transplantation Registry, ANZDATA
• Simulation and Essential Clinical Skills Training Centres, Barts Health NHS Trust
• Pakistan Society of Critical care Medicine