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The European Society of Intensive Care Medicine

ESICM

The European Society of Intensive Care Medicine is an Association of individual persons.

Lobbying Activity

Meeting with Daphne Von Buxhoeveden (Head of Unit Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority)

8 Dec 2025 · Courtesy meeting between HERA and ESICM on the Global Health Resilience initiative and related activities

Meeting with Boriša Falatar (Cabinet of Commissioner Hadja Lahbib)

12 Nov 2025 · Health preparedness

Meeting with Sirpa Pietikäinen (Member of the European Parliament)

19 Mar 2025 · Intensive care

Meeting with Erik Poulsen (Member of the European Parliament, Rapporteur)

30 May 2023 · NCD

Meeting with Maria Angela Danzì (Member of the European Parliament)

3 May 2023 · Intensive care

Response to A comprehensive approach to mental health

15 Feb 2023

The European Society of Intensive Care Medicine (ESICM) is the leading medical organisation in the field of Intensive Care in Europe. It supports and promotes the advancement of knowledge in Intensive Care Medicine (ICU), in particular the promotion of the highest standards of multidisciplinary care of critically ill patients, families and healthcare providers. ESICM welcomes the European Commissions efforts to provide a comprehensive approach to mental health in the framework of a stronger and more resilient European Health Union, closer to its citizens and professionals. In particular, we support the need to promote a prevention-oriented approach to mental health, especially when it comes to mental health disorders directly arising from conditions at the workplace, such as burnout syndrome, depression or post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD). The Covid-19 pandemic has proven to be challenging for workers, especially in the healthcare sector as increasing work demands on healthcare professionals cause psychological stress. However, even before the pandemic data have been collected and analysed showing that healthcare workers in particularly stressful environments (intensive care, emergency, oncology, cardiology etc.) develop symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, insomnia, and substance use disorders. With the additional workload and prolonged deeply stressful situations caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and the shortages of staff and funds currently affecting hospitals in many EU countries, the burden on healthcare workers and ICU workers, in particular, has worsened. Many ICU physicians and nurses have left or plan to leave their profession; others struggle to sustain the delivery of high-quality care. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates a shortage of 10 million healthcare professionals over the world by 2030. Therefore, we call on the European Commission to adequately address mental health in the healthcare sector by putting forward more ambitious and comprehensive legislative measures on work-related mental health, especially focusing on high-stress healthcare professions. Numerous studies show how work-related factors, in the health sector in general and in intensive care units specifically, contribute significantly to the decline in mental health and well-being among healthcare professionals. They are among the most affected professions by psychosocial hazards, which not only decreases the attractiveness of their profession and causes retention issues in the health systems across Europe but also has a direct impact on their private and professional life and thus consequences on their patients, relatives and families. In addition, the European Commission should include in the initiative coordinated actions from physicians, nurses, academia, healthcare administrators, researchers, funding agencies, and policymakers in order to improve the mental health of healthcare workers and address the fundamental causes of psychosocial risks. We believe a new impact assessment of the mental health situation in different healthcare specialities in Europe is urgent: we encourage the European Commission to use the opportunity of the upcoming Eurobarometer on mental health to evaluate the situation and put forward concrete solutions. Moreover, we recommend the European Commission work in cooperation with healthcare professionals and establish clear guidelines to improve the quality of work conditions and thus retain workforce. Finally, in line with one of the strategys objectives, more investments in mental health - namely through the Horizon Europe programme - can help to support a more structured approach towards mental health in Europe, concrete solutions to support healthcare workers dealing with mental health problems and make the European Health Union more resilient and reliable at the eyes of European citizens, in line with the EU ambitions.
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Meeting with Sara Cerdas (Member of the European Parliament)

27 Jan 2023 · Invite for event and hosting an exhibition

Meeting with Roberto Viola (Director-General Communications Networks, Content and Technology)

12 Apr 2021 · Outreach of ESICM & relevance of their work in the context of the COVID 19 pandemic (Virtual meeting)

Response to European Health Emergency Response Authority

24 Feb 2021

From the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine (ESICM) point of view, it was evident that one of the lessons learned from the first wave of the pandemic was that the EU needs a clear blueprint for all countries to follow in times of crisis. Once the PPE went scarce, ventilators weren’t found, and human resources were stretched far beyond what’s reasonable, each country and even each hospital applied its policy. In some cases, the procedure was of solidarity between hospital centres; in others it was prudence and precautionary principle, but there wasn’t a harmonised way to face this unprecedented situation which caused a lot of confusion and critical situations that could have been avoided. In such cases, we believe that there is no need for a very strict plan and for the EU to impose step by step what each Member State needs to do, but there should be a clear pathway, adaptable to each Member State that every hospital would follow. This would avoid the situation of some hospitals being worse off than others and would harmonise standards of care for patients in the EU. ESICM discussed these issues with the European Commission after the first wave and also underlined the necessity of bridging the gap between decision makers and doctors on the ground. Indeed, after the first wave ESICM has been consulted by the Commission on the efficiency of different PPE, ventilators, ICU beds and what kind of policies would have been helpful for European ICUs during this crisis. However, these consultations should happen on a more regular basis and not only in times of pandemic if we want to develop a solid and coherent health policy and cooperation systems at EU level. ESICM believes that a general blueprint, coming from the EU after thorough consultation from the specialists on the ground that each Member State then can adapt to its own situation and its own healthcare system, would be very beneficial for all EU citizens in need of immediate medical care. In that regard, the training programme implemented by ESICM and funded by the EU to prepare Member States and their hospitals to the second and third wave of COVID-19 is a very clear and concrete act of preparedness. It is an example of cooperation between the policy makers, who identified a need, and professionals on the ground who can respond to this need and bring a concrete project to life. The COVID-19 Skills Preparation Course (C19_SPACE) was created following a clear identification of a problem by the European Commission after the first wave that there are not enough people able to help in ICUs, while other departments of hospitals are being closed. Therefore ESICM developed a thorough curriculum, adapted to the situation, public health measures and audience of physicians and nurses not usually working in ICUs. The programme is being deployed in all EU Member States and we can also see great solidarity between hospitals and Member States who are helping each other in the roll-out of the programme. This is a very positive way in which policy makers and healthcare professionals can cooperate and ESICM believes a pathway to create regular consultations and such cooperation should be in the plan on how to approach the idea of the European Health Union. ESICM welcomes this important initiative of the European Commission and believes that it comes at the right time. HERA would enable the EU to respond to cross-border health threats rapidly and in a bolder, better coordinated manner. Such an investment in health preparedness at EU level is crucial not only for the Union to be able to face similar threats like the COVID-19 pandemic, but also to pave the way towards higher standards of healthcare delivery and exchange of best practices between Member States.
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Response to A European Health Data Space

3 Feb 2021

The European Society of Intensive Care Medicine (ESICM) welcomes the initiative of the European Commission to engage the digital transition in the health sector while making the most of the potential of digital health. ESICM agrees with the Commission’s objective to promote access to health data for the purposes of research and innovation, diagnosis and treatment of diseases, all the while ensuring that citizens have control over their own personal data. ESICM believes that such an initiative would accelerate scientific discovery through data science techniques, which would result in providing high-quality healthcare for all European citizens and reduce inequalities. In that regard, ESICM would like to attract the Commission's attention to the particular need for such action in the field of Intensive Care Medicine. Indeed, decision making in Intensive Care Medicine is complex and time critical. A significant number of critically ill patients either do not survive or become chronically disabled. To improve these outcomes, intensive care providers should have access to the best possible information and data driven decision support. This is urgently needed as numbers of critically ill patients continue to increase worldwide due to aging populations, increasing prevalence of complex chronic conditions, improved access to healthcare worldwide, and global challenges including pandemics such as COVID-19. ESICM believes that Intensive Care Medicine is uniquely positioned to leverage the opportunities afforded by the rapidly evolving field of data science and artificial intelligence and this opportunity needs to be emphasized by the European Commission in their proposal. Intensive care admissions are among the most data-dense processes in a hospital, generating a huge amount of highly granular data which can then be used for research to improve our understanding of critical illness; thus enabling better decision-making at the bedside and highly improving outcomes for our critically ill patients. Healthcare systems in Europe but also worldwide should develop and implement processes to share these data responsibly and foster widespread collaboration. This should include involvement of all relevant stakeholders in academia, government, and industry always in full compliance with the principles of GDPR, patient privacy, as well as accordance with principles of data findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability. In that regard, it is important to ESICM that the European Commission consider the following actions: - Promoting large scale data harmonization and responsible data sharing in compliance with privacy laws by identifying flexible common data models, core sets of standardized data elements and anonymisation strategies. - Establishing and sharing best practice guidelines between Member States to promote the optimal development and deployment of data science techniques that guarantee a reliable, reproducible, fair, and trustworthy use of patient data for scientific discovery and improved understanding of critical illness. - Promoting the effective implementation and evaluation of data-driven systems in Intensive Care that can translate data science discovery into practice at the bedside. - Providing guidelines and setting minimum standards for electronic health records used in Intensive Care Medicine. - Identifying opportunities for further expansion and diversification in the field. - Increasing awareness and promoting education in data science, with a view to educating a new generation of data-aware intensivists and clinically-aware data scientists in order to develop a diverse and inclusive multidisciplinary workforce equipped to implement, appraise, and use data-driven systems of care in practice.
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Response to Pharmaceutical Strategy - Timely patient access to affordable medicines

7 Jul 2020

The COVID-19 crisis showed us that clearly, there are issues in the way the supplies in medication are handled within the EU and between Member States. It is clear that we need a detailed cooperation blueprint to cope with such events, but also for coordination to avoid the shortages which can have dramatic consequences as we experienced during the pandemic. The provision of medicines during the COVID-19 pandemic was extremely challenging given the ever-changing local situations and different experiences during the crisis. This was reported by many hospitals and front line workers. How this situation affected the everyday practice in the ICUs is a question that still needs answering. Studies such as the UNITE-COVID-19 project (an ESICM study) are aiming at answering some of these questions. In several European countries, stocks were monitored centrally (at national or regional level) and re-dispatched according to the needs by a government agency. The medicines in question were mostly short-acting sedatives, dialysis fluids and Neuromuscular Blocking agents. General oversight from an EU perspective is very important as incidence varied enormously from country to country, but sometimes even within regions of one country. In our view, it is unacceptable that European citizens neither receive the same level of care nor have access to the best care possible. From that perspective, we would recommend to the European Commission to find a way to map the total burden of ICU patients in Europe during the period February-May 2020 and plan to have enough resources to cope with a similar number of patients. In that way, we will make sure that sufficient supplies are available in a case of a second wave of COVID-19 or another pandemic. Through its Pharmaceuticals Strategy, the EU should recommend that the building of stocks, delivery, monitoring and reporting systems are put in place for the aforementioned drugs. If possible, production lines should also be put in place in Europe in order to avoid production chain issues and bottlenecks resulting from a dependence on products coming from outside Europe. ICUs are heavily dependent on a steady provision of drugs for the purpose of sedation, and a shortage of these drugs has serious effects on patient care. For example, there are reports of the average length of stay in ICU for patients requiring invasive mechanical ventilation. For survivors, this length is about 2 weeks and for non-survivors about 10 days. Therefore each of these patients requires a significant amount of drugs. It is also important to understand the severity of the impact of such a lack of drug supplies on non-COVID patients present in the ICUs. It is possible that the lack of short-acting sedative drugs made standard practice more difficult during the crisis, because less efficient drugs were used. It is also possible that the length of stay of patients in the ICUs could have been longer than necessary because of these issues. In summary, the change of medication availability and the use of resources might have affected the outcomes for our patients. In addition, the EU should carefully monitor the emerging evidence from new trials that may give information on drugs that can possibly modulate the clinical response to COVID-19. For instance, the RECOVERY trial on dexamethasone has been released as a pre-print. If the results are confirmed, the drug could be beneficial for COVID-19 patients receiving respiratory support, but not for other COVID-19 patients. Other trials will be completed soon. Results from these trials should be used to make recommendations for which group of COVID-19 patients drugs should be used and which should be avoided. Accordingly, the EU should take this opportunity through this Strategy to recommend coordination and to direct individual countries on this topic.
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Meeting with Maria Koleva (Cabinet of Commissioner Mariya Gabriel)

22 Jun 2020 · Training of clinicians in intensive care

Meeting with Karolina Herbout-Borczak (Cabinet of Commissioner Stella Kyriakides), Tove Ernst (Cabinet of Commissioner Stella Kyriakides)

22 Jun 2020 · Virtual meeting with European Society of Intensive Care Medicine to discuss medicines shortages during the pandemic.

Meeting with Karolina Herbout-Borczak (Cabinet of Commissioner Stella Kyriakides), Tove Ernst (Cabinet of Commissioner Stella Kyriakides)

22 Jun 2020 · VC meeting on training of clinicians in intensive care

Meeting with Anne Bucher (Director-General Health and Food Safety)

19 Jun 2020 · preparation of the second COVID19 wave; how to anticipate shortages in ICUs; support through the Commission health programme

Meeting with Catherine Sustek (Cabinet of Vice-President Margaritis Schinas), Despina Spanou (Cabinet of Vice-President Margaritis Schinas), Maria Luisa Llano Cardenal (Cabinet of Vice-President Margaritis Schinas)

19 Jun 2020 · Exchange of views on the COVID-19 lessons learned

Meeting with Anne Bucher (Director-General Health and Food Safety)

29 May 2020 · to exchange views on current and urgent health issues which remain at the forefront of the public consciousness; f.eg. Promoting standards in critical care medicine, Providing recommendations and guidelines for optimising intensive care facilities