Children’s Services
Winner
DHU Healthcare, Nottingham Children’s Hospital and University Hospitals Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust: A wish to die at home: making this possible for children
The Palliative Care Urgent Response Service (PCURS) enables people with urgent palliative healthcare needs to stay at home. Collaboration between the PCURS, Nottingham’s paediatric oncology team and Derbyshire’s community children’s nursing team enabled the service to be extended to children and their families, so they could also die at home if they wished. Communication, care planning, medication doses and plans, 24-hour staf support and the chance to debrief after a death were all put in place. Parents whose child died at home were grateful to have had the opportunity for this to happen.
Finalists
Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust: Transformation of children’s emergency department pathways into a pioneering model
An increased number of children were
attending the emergency department
and admitted to wards unnecessarily.
Our initiative focused on redesigning
clinical areas so children’s nurses were
available 24/7 to improve care quality
and access to services for patients, and
make sure they only stayed in hospital
when necessary. Admissions decreased
and relationships with partner agencies
were strengthened.
Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust: Emergency department nurse navigators
Specialist safeguarding nurses with
training and experience in adverse
childhood experiences, trauma-informed
care, sexual and criminal exploitation, and
safeguarding were employed as
emergency department navigators.
Visiting hotspots to locate children at risk
of harm, they work to prevent them from
becoming victims of violence. Expanding
the service from Blackpool to span
Lancashire reduced health inequalities,
serious violence and knife crime.
Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust: Raising the voice of the child with health conditions
An educational tool using children’s own
imagery and experiences was created to
enhance primary school children’s
knowledge of diabetes and help them
understand the needs of their peers who had it. Images drawn by three
children with type 1 diabetes were used
in an animation. A safe, inclusive
environment in which a diverse range of
children could ask questions about
diabetes was created. Children felt it
was educational and fun; teachers said
it was a fantastic resource and asked for
it to be added to training packages
used by school nurses.
Chestnut Tree Children’s Hospice Care: Promoting children and families’ wellbeing and reducing social isolation post pandemic
After Covid-19, paediatric palliative care
required a new approach to adequately
support children and young people and
their families. A lead engagement nurse
was introduced to implement and lead
a series of events and activities to
address the isolation they had reported.
Breakfast clubs, coffee mornings,
pottery classes, and toddler, youth,
bereavement and dads’ groups were
set up. Parents, carers and children
attended more activities, felt supported
and made new friends.
Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust: Using an ambulatory pump to optimise pain management
A need to improve complex and
refractory pain management and to
develop staff who could provide more-
effective analgesia using ambulatory
patient-controlled/proxy-patient
controlled analgesia pumps in all
settings was recognised. Patient
education leaflets, practice guidelines
and step-by-step guides were written to supplement virtual training sessions. A
training programme was set up, 300
nurses were trained and 60 patients
benefited from the ambulatory pump.
Pain control, mobility and quality of life
all improved.
Kingston Hospital NHS Foundation Trust: Nurse-led initiatives to empower parents to confidently partner in the care of their baby
Family-centred, but medically led,
care transitioned to a partnership in
which parents were empowered to
play a key role in decision making and
caring for their infants. Unrestricted
visiting, parental involvement in ward
rounds and a staff training programme
resulted in more babies breastfeeding
at discharge and shorter hospital stays.
Loving family relationships were
bolstered, and valued partnerships
between parents and health
professionals were created.
North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust: Paediatric HIV service
Several young patients living with HIV
required admission for monitoring due
to non-concordance with medication, so
a nurse-led service was developed for
babies and children born to mothers
with HIV. Community visits and flexible
outpatient follow-ups enabled access to
diagnostic tests and interventions as
early as possible. The service achieved
some of the best outcomes in the
country with 100% of patients, including
those transitioning to adult services,
having unrecordable viral loads.