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To determine the implementation of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance (NICE CG83) for posthospital discharge critical illness follow-up and rehabilitation programmes.

Closed-question postal survey.

Adult intensive care units (ICUs) across the UK, identified from national databases of organisations. Specialist-only and private ICUs were not included.

Senior respiratory critical care physiotherapy clinicians.

A representative sample of 182 surveys was returned from the 240 distributed (75.8% (95% CI 70.4 to 81.2)). Only 48 organisations (27.3% (95% CI 20.7 to 33.9)) offered a follow-up service 2–3 months following hospital discharge, the majority (n=39, 84.8%) in clinic format. 12 organisations reported posthospital discharge rehabilitation programmes (6.8% (95% CI 3.1 to 10.5)), albeit only 10 of these operated on a regular basis. Lack of …