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The pioneering work of one of our hospital consultants in the 1960s is being remembered as he developed the first Intensive Care Unit in England at KGH.

 The late Dr Gerard Crockett (a consultant physician) used a small team of nurses in a converted orthopaedic ward to establish the intensive care unit in December 1962

 Dr Crockett led a team from Kettering who visited one of the first Intensive Care Units in Europe, which was in Paris. They then came back and set about creating one at KGH.

 At first there were only four beds, one was in a sound-proofed, air-conditioned cubicle. The treatment was based on dedicated and constant nursing care.

 In the first year, it saw 217 admissions. The admissions then rose to 503 in 1972. This was in an era where coronary care patients and many other patients were also seen in ICU. Now coronary care patients have their own dedicated unit.

 By 2003 our ICU had seven beds and was seeing about 440 patients per year. 

 Ten years later, in 2013, it moved from the main ward block into the adjacent new Foundation Wing. It now sees about 500 patients a year across its 16 beds.

 In 2020, at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the old hospital intensive care unit had to be reopened to cope with the large numbers of patients critically ill with Covid-19. The old ICU had become a medical assessment ward when the new ICU opened in the Foundation Wing.

 By doing this, it enabled the hospital to almost double its intensive care beds at the hospital from 16 to 29, and in addition a redeployment of hospital staff meant its team crew went from 75 staff to 140.

 The Intensive Care Society list England’s first Intensive Care Unit as opening in 1966 at Mead Ward at St Thomas’ Hospital, in London. However, this was four years after Dr Crockett opened his unit at KGH in 1962.

 Dr Crockett’s contribution to the history of Intensive Care is however noted on the Royal College of Physician’s Website.

 It was also celebrated at KGH on the 40^th anniversary of the opening of his Intensive Care Unit in 2003, where former staff from the unit gathered to remember the achievement.

 The event was organised by intensive care unit charge nurse, Andy Chatwin, and consultant anaesthetist, Dr Linda Twohey. It was attended by ICU founder members Monica Mercer, June Spendlove, Pam Harker and Frances Brown.

 Monica had joined the unit in September 1963 as a staff nurse and became senior sister in charge of the unit in 1966 until her retirement in 1980.

 Speaking at the 2003 event she said: "The intensive care unit started its life as a converted orthopaedic ward in the old part of the hospital. At first it only had a small amount of specialist equipment, but that quickly snowballed as it began to develop.

 “In those days we dealt with a very wide range of emergencies - much more so than today. For example on top of the usual surgical, medical and orthopaedic emergencies, we also dealt with head injuries, special care for babies and coronary care. All of those areas now have specialist units to themselves.

 “I really enjoyed my time working in the unit. We were very pioneering and tried a lot of things out for the first time. We were a small team but very tight knit and we all pulled together to provide the best care we could."

 In 1976 a new intensive care unit was established in the more modern, main ward block building, in one of three four-bedded bays. That has subsequently developed into the extremely hi-tech unit the hospital has today, in the Foundation Wing.

 Gerard ‘Gee’ Crockett’s life and times

 Gerard 'Gee' Crockett was born on May 3, 1919, as Gerard Hutchinson, son of Samuel Hutchinson, consultant anaesthetist at University College Hospital (UCH).

 He later adopted the maiden name of his mother, the daughter of Sir James Crockett.

 He was educated at Harrow and Cambridge and qualified as a doctor in 1944, got married in the same year, and was commissioned into the Royal Army Medical Corp.

 He served in India as an anaesthetist until he was decommissioned in 1947, after which, in 1948, he went to work at UCH, first as a house physician, then a senior physician, and cardiologist.

 In 1954 he was appointed as the consultant physician, geriatrics, to the Northamptonshire area of the Oxford region to supervise the county's 900 geriatric beds.

By the 1960s he had become a consultant physician, general medicine, to the Kettering district.

 After the team visit to Paris he set up the Intensive Care Unit at KGH in December 1962 and – along with other educational work – continued there until his retirement in 1981.

 He also spent a few months as a specialist physician at the Reza Shah hospital in Tehran in Iran.

 Gee was devoted to his wife, Jo, and their three children, James, Desda and Doody, and moved to Dorset on retirement. Gee passed away on April 6, 2001

  John Pettman, who wrote a book on the history of Kettering General Hospital, to celebrate its Centenary Year in 1997, wrote: “Gerard Crockett was a skilled and innovative physician who succeeded in balancing his clinical responsibilities with his family life.

 “He opened and directed the intensive care unit (ICU) in 1962. This was probably the first of its kind in England and certainly the first in an English district general hospital. His happy enthusiasm, which inspired his colleagues, is best represented in his own words: 'The feeling of family and team at the Kettering hospital made it

 a joy to work there.'