24-hour access to paediatric consultants key to improving acute care

Its report, Consultant Delivered Care: An Evaluation of New Ways of Working in Paediatrics, argues that continuous face-to-face care from consultants can radically improve acute services for children in hospital.

Traditionally, consultants have only been available during Mondays to Fridays, between 9am and 5pm, and “on call” at other times.

As part of research for the report, an RCPCH project team visited 10 paediatric units and conducted a national survey to study how the new way of working could benefit children.

Senior nurses said the model, which is already being successfully used at Birmingham Children’s Hospital among others, leads to better team working, decision-making and communication.

Dr Carol Ewing, RCPCH workforce planning officer, said: “Patients deserve to be treated with the same high standard of care whatever time of day or night they are admitted to hospital, whether that be at 11am on Tuesday morning or 10pm on Sunday evening.”

She added: “We should always look at ways to improve our hospital services and I believe that by rolling out a model of consultant-delivered care, or tailoring a variation of the model to a service’s busiest day or time of the week, our NHS will be a much better service.”

RCPCH is planning a follow-up project to will look more comprehensively at the effect of the consultant-delivered care on children’s health outcomes.