Health professionals who work in intensive care units (ICUs) are often called upon to make difficult moral decisions. On some occasions, these involve trying to determine what it is that an unconscious patient would have wanted when their prognosis is uncertain. On other occasions, it can involve difficulties around confidentiality when there are good reasons for sharing information, but it's unclear whether this is something that a patient would have wanted. The allocation of scarce ICU resources raises a different set of challenging ethical questions. For example, it is not uncommon for all of the beds on a unit to be occupied and if another patient arrives it can necessitate some careful deliberation about the relative prognoses of patients. If a patient urgently needs to be admitted, when there are no beds available, then it would be appropriate to see if a patient who is presently in intensive care could be moved to a general ward. Which ethical principles should inform this decision making?
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