A retrospective analysis of 20,178 adult neurological infection admissions to United Kingdom critical care units from 2001 to 2020.

"Declarations Ethics approval and consent to participateThis study was performed in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations, and in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.ICNARC data were collected by ICNARC under existing ethical approvals. As available on https://www.icnarc.org/About/Information-Standards/Information-Security/Privacy-Policy, ICNARC have approval to hold patient identifiable data under Sect. 251 of the NHS Act 2006. Approval was granted by the Confidentiality Advisory Group (CAG) within the Health Research Authority (HRA) (previously National Information Governance Board). The approval number for the CMP was PIAG 2–10(f)/2005. Ethical approval for this study was granted by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Research Ethics Committee (26550). Individual participant content was waived by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Research Ethics Committee due to retrospective nature of the study. An information sharing agreement was signed with ICNARC. Consent for publicationNot applicable. Competing interestsThe authors declare no competing interests. Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests."

"Funding The acquisition of these study data was funded by Professor David Moore (Professor of Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine, LSHTM), who was not involved in the study design, in the collection, analysis, or interpretation of the data, or in the writing of the manuscript."