Paediatric Emergency Care: Improving Service Provision in the United Kingdom

General Practitioners and Accident and Emergency services are the two most common routes, through which children and young people are referred to specialist NHS services in the United Kingdom. In a typical year, approximately 3.6 to 4 million children attend accident and emergency departments in England, with almost half of all infants under 12 months of age, and a quarter of older children requiring this service (Kennedy 2010, Hemmingway 2011, Jones et al 2011).Situated in the West Midlands, Coventry and Warwickshire is no exception, with an estimated 30.000 children necessitating emergency care from one local NHS Trust. Despite the many challenges confronting changes to paediatric and child health services, the inertia for change provided the opportunity to improve outcomes for children and young people who require urgent or unscheduled care locally. Thus, ensuring that children and young people receive age specific care from highly qualified and skilled practitioners competent in their field of paediatric emergency care. Currently there exists a paucity of paediatric emergency nurse practitioners (PENPs) (Pritchard 2012, Feetham et al 2014) available to assess, diagnose and treat children within local emergency departments. The purpose of this service improvement is to improve quality and ensure patient safety, with a resident, skilled and knowledgeable body of paediatric emergency nurse practitioners (PENPs) across the locality. Therefore this service improvement project was supported by the Coventry and Warwickshire Workforce Locality Board, who commissioned professional bespoke education from the local University, to facilitate this ongoing service improvement, coupled with intercollegial, collaborative support and mentorship from senior nurses, clinicians and academics. Practitioners follow a bespoke educational pathway integrating theory and practice outcomes. The first PENP cohort have now completed the programme. It is proposed to follow-up with an impact study to evaluate the quality and outcomes of the service improvement, coupled with ongoing strategic planning to ensure that the compliment of PENP's remains sustainable.