FabStuff Podcast

FabStuff Podcast

Professor Shondipon Laha

Sep 6, 2026 · 41 min · 10 segments

Have you ever wondered what is the reality of working in intensive care? This is probably one of the most demanding areas of clinical practice, with staff not only having to manage organ failure…

Have you ever wondered what is the reality of working in intensive care? This is probably one of the most demanding areas of clinical practice, with staff not only having to manage organ failure with patients who are so often at the edge of life and death but also families who are anxious and distressed. In this their latest podcast Niall and Roy explore the modern reality of this highly pressured environment in a revealing exchange with the President of the Intensive Care Society, Professor Shondipon Laha. Shond is a critical care consultant at Lancashire teaching Hospitals and this is an encounter full of surprises. While he highlights the continuing shortages of intensive care beds in the UK which was cruelly exposed when Covid hit in 2020 (and remains a challenge today) he also points to the desperate need for social care reform and for rehabilitation services. Both of these he argues are essential if we are to achieve the right outcomes for patients who have been through intensive care. Shond acknowledges the technical and drug advances that have been made in recent years, ironically helped by the dreadful experience of Covid. Yet for him, the greatest progress in his specialty has been the development of strong multidisciplinary teams in which the key roles of nurses, physios, pharmacists, OTs, dietitians and others are recognised and team working is making care effective. As for doctors, he sees the development of the intensive care speciality and the move away from it being a branch of anaesthetics as vital with the development of education, training and dedicated intensive care posts. If you want to validate or challenge your view of intensive care, or just develop a better understanding of a unique area of healthcare, please do join Niall, Roy and Shond - it’s a great listen. Send us Fan Mail

Have you ever wondered what is the reality of working in intensive care? This is probably one of the most demanding areas of clinical practice, with staff not only having to manage organ failure…

Introducing Intensive Care0:17 – 3:03

0:17

Welcome and thanks for joining us in The Loop, the podcast that seeks to explore the worlds of health and social care.

0:24

I'm Neil Dixon, a former BBC broadcaster, one-time chief executive of the King's Fund, the General Medical Council and the NHS Confederation.

0:32

My co-conspirator is the irrepressible Roy Lilly.

0:36

Hello, Roy.

0:37

I

0:37

don't know about irrepressible.

0:40

Sweaty, I think is probably the right word to know.

0:43

We're recording this on what is apparently the hottest day of the year.

0:46

Well,

0:47

from the inferno, our focus is on intensive care, where highly specialist staff treat critically ill patients with complex systems for monitoring and for life support.

0:58

ICUs, or sometimes they're called ITUs, intensive therapy units, support around 200,000 patients every year in the UK.

1:06

And intensive is expensive.

1:08

It costs nearly £2,000 a day for each bed, and it should mean one registered nurse per patient.

1:15

This is also a highly stressed world, with clinical staff not only managing very sick patients, but also supporting anxious and distressed families.

1:23

Intensive care has never been far from political debate, with consistent concern about lack of beds and staff stretching back to the 1990s.

1:31

In 2020, The COVID pandemic again starkly exposed the UK's severe shortage of capacity.

1:39

The NHS had one of the lowest per capita intensive care bed allocations in the developed world.

1:45

Fast forward then to the new Labour government and its 10-year workforce plan.

1:50

The Intensive Care Society has not pulled its punches on this, pointing to the stark deficits in the plan for acute, emergency and intensive care.

1:59

It says a plan that overlooks its most acute services requires will ultimately fail vulnerable patients when they need it most.

2:06

To discuss all this, our guest is the president of the Intensive Care Society, Professor Shondipan Laha.

2:13

Shond, as he is known to his colleagues, is a consultant in intensive care medicine and anaesthesia, and he's based mainly at the multi-specialty critical care unit at the Royal Preston Hospital.

2:24

He's been a key driving force nationally in intensive care education and training, and in developing clinical guidelines and standards.

2:32

He's an impressive research background and is co-author of The Beginner's Guide to Intensive Care, a document well-thumbed by doctors in training and others entering the ICU environment for the first time.

2:44

So, Roy, given all the other political noise, I think it's probably fair to say that intensive care has not recently caused government or NHS leaders the headaches of the past, but it certainly has the potential to do so.

2:56

This is a dog that's not barked or barked loudly, but that may be just a matter of time.

3:01

What do you want to hear from Shand?

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