Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation or ECMO is one of those treatments we sometimes need to think about with our very sick patients. I recently had to make a referral to my local centre and doing so made me wonder what it is that the ECMO centres want from us to make the path smoother. So I asked Dr Susan Dashey, Consultant at Glenfield Hospital and Dr Brij Patel, Consultant at the Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospitals. Both these are centres for ECMO.

I think their answers will provide us with some guidance for the future.