A personal narrative of Adrian Wong’s experience while battling COVID-19 at King’s College Hospital. These are the author’s personal opinions and do not represent the views of the institution and professional societies to which they belong.

The global COVID-19 pandemic has changed healthcare throughout the world and the specialty of Intensive Care Medicine has never been under such scrutiny. The events in China and Italy in particular sharply focus healthcare professionals at all levels to work together and prepare for the inevitable.

I work in a tertiary-level, teaching hospital with five critical care units spread across two hospital sites. In total, we had approximately 75 beds pre-pandemic (it is a well known fact that the number of ICU beds in the UK is the lowest in Europe for its population size).

We have more than doubled the number of ICU beds; there was also a concomitant expansion in the number and size of high-dependency areas staffed by colleagues from non-ICU specialties.

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