Children's health staff shortages
Significant workforce shortages across multiple disciplines in children's health, impacting care delivery and patient safety.
33 items
1 source
2 inquiries
Strongest theme matches
Mixed across source types and ranked by classifier confidence plus text match strength.
Inquiry recommendation
81match
BRIS-196 - Mandate paediatric environment, trained staff, and PICU access for children's interventional procedures
The national standards should stipulate that children with CHD who undergo any form of interventional procedure must be cared for in a paediatric environment. This means that all healthcare professionals who care for these children must be trained and qualified in paediatric care. It also means that children must be cared for in a setting with facilities and...
Matched on
terms: children, health, staff
Inquiry recommendation
81match
BRIS-170 - Designate senior staff in health authorities for local children's healthcare commissioning
Each health authority and each primary care group or primary care trust should designate a senior member of staff who should have responsibility for commissioning children’s healthcare services locally.
Matched on
terms: children, health, staff
Inquiry recommendation
78match
BRIS-167 - Appoint National Director for Children's Healthcare Services to promote improvements
A National Director for Children’s Healthcare Services should be appointed to promote improvements in healthcare services provided for children.
Matched on
terms: children, health
Inquiry recommendation
78match
IHRD-85 - Deputy CMO for Children's Healthcare
The Department should appoint a Deputy Chief Medical Officer with specific responsibility for children's healthcare.
Matched on
terms: children, health
Inquiry recommendation
77match
IHRD-71 - Children's Healthcare Governance
All Trust Boards should ensure that appropriate governance mechanisms are in place to assure the quality and safety of the healthcare services provided for children and young people.
Matched on
terms: children, health
Inquiry recommendation
73match
BRIS-181 - Organise children's specialist services for best staff, facilities, and outcomes, prioritising quality
Specialist services for children should be organised so as to provide the best available staff and facilities, thus providing the best possible opportunity for good outcomes. Advice should be sought from experts on the appropriate number of patients to be treated to achieve good outcomes. In planning and organising specialist services, the requirements of quality and safety should...
Matched on
terms: children, staff
Inquiry recommendation
72match
BRIS-185 - Review and apply 1991 paediatric nurse staffing standards as minimum
The 1991 standards for the numbers of paediatrically qualified nurses required at any given time should serve as the minimum standard and should apply where children are treated (save in emergencies). The standards should be reviewed as a matter of urgency to take account of changing patterns in the provision of acute healthcare services.
Matched on
terms: children, health, staff
Inquiry recommendation
69match
BRIS-183 - Validate trusts providing children's acute services for child-centred policies, staff, and facilities
After completion of a pilot exercise, all trusts which provide acute hospital services for children should be subject to a process of validation to ensure that they have appropriate child- and family-centred policies, staff, and facilities to provide a good standard of care for children. Trusts which are not so validated should not, save in emergencies, provide acute...
Matched on
terms: children, staff
Inquiry recommendation
69match
BRIS-177 - NSF must provide strategic guidance for integrating children's healthcare services
There must be much greater integration of primary, community, acute and specialist healthcare for children. The NSF should include strategic guidance to health authorities and trusts so that services in the future are better integrated and organised around the needs of children and their families.
Matched on
terms: children, health
Inquiry recommendation
69match
BRIS-176 - NSF must plan regular publication of children's healthcare quality and performance data
The NSF must include plans for the regular publication of information about the quality and performance of children’s healthcare services at national level, at the level of individual trusts, and of individual consultant units.
Matched on
terms: children, health
Inquiry recommendation
69match
BRIS-175 - NSF must include incentives for improving children's healthcare services, aiding needy trusts
The NSF should include incentives for the improvement of children’s healthcare services, with particular help being given to those trusts most in need.
Matched on
terms: children, health
Inquiry recommendation
69match
BRIS-173 - NSF must establish standards for all children's acute healthcare services
The NSF should include a programme for the establishment of standards in all areas of children’s acute hospital and healthcare services.
Matched on
terms: children, health
Inquiry recommendation
69match
BRIS-172 - Urgently agree and implement National Service Framework for children's healthcare
The proposed National Service Framework (NSF) for children’s healthcare services must be agreed and implemented as a matter of urgency.
Matched on
terms: children, health
Inquiry recommendation
69match
BRIS-169 - Expand Cabinet Committee remit to include healthcare for children and young people
The Cabinet Committee on Children and Young People’s Services should specifically include in its remit matters to do with healthcare and health services for children and young people.
Matched on
terms: children, health
Inquiry recommendation
60match
BRIS-184 - Ensure children are cared for in paediatric environments by qualified professionals
Children should always (save in exceptional circumstances, such as emergencies) be cared for in a paediatric environment, and always by healthcare professionals who hold a recognised qualification in caring for children. This is especially so in relation to paediatric intensive care.
Matched on
terms: children, health
Inquiry recommendation
60match
BRIS-171 - Designate executive board member to protect children's interests in trusts
All trusts which provide services for children as well as adults, should have a designated executive member of the board whose responsibility it is to ensure that the interests of children are protected and that they are cared for in a paediatric environment by paediatrically trained staff.
Matched on
terms: children, staff
Inquiry recommendation
60match
BRIS-168 - Consider creating a Children's Commissioner for England to promote children's rights
Consideration should be given to the creation of an office of Children’s Commissioner in England, with the role of promoting the rights of children in all areas of public policy and seeking improvements to the ways in which the needs of children are met. Healthcare would be one of the areas covered by such a commissioner. Were such...
Matched on
terms: children, health
Inquiry recommendation
48match
BRIS-186 - Require all surgeons operating on children to obtain paediatric qualification and revalidation
All surgeons who operate on children, including those who also operate on adults, must undergo training in the care of children and obtain a recognised professional qualification in the care of children. As matter of priority, the GMC, the body responsible for the revalidation of doctors, should agree with the Royal College of Surgeons of England the appropriate...
Matched on
terms: children
Inquiry recommendation
48match
BRIS-179 - Ensure free-standing children's hospitals provide access to all necessary facilities and specialists
In the case of existing free-standing children’s hospitals, particular attention must be given to ensuring that, through good management and organisation of care, children have access when needed to (a) facilities which may not routinely be found in a children’s hospital and (b) specialists, the appointment of whom in a children’s hospital could not be justified given the...
Matched on
terms: children
Inquiry recommendation
47match
IHRD-69 - Executive Director Responsibilities
Trusts should appoint and train Executive Directors with specific responsibility for: (i) Issues of Candour. (ii) Child Healthcare. (iii) Learning from SAI related patient deaths.
Matched on
terms: health
Inquiry recommendation
44match
BRIS-182 - Establish flexible Family Support Funds for travel costs at concentrated specialist children's trusts
Where specialist services for children are concentrated in a small number of trusts spread throughout England, these trusts should establish Family Support Funds to help families to meet the costs arising from travelling and staying away from home. The Funds should be administered flexibly and should not be limited to those on income support or with low incomes.
Matched on
terms: children
Inquiry recommendation
44match
BRIS-180 - Pilot children's hospitals running all acute and community services in a geographical area
Consideration should be given to piloting the introduction of a system whereby children’s hospitals take over the running of the children’s acute and community services throughout a geographical area, building on the example of the Philadelphia Children’s Hospital in the USA.
Matched on
terms: children
Inquiry recommendation
44match
BRIS-178 - Locate children's acute hospital services in children's hospitals near general hospitals
Children’s acute hospital services should ideally be located in a children’s hospital, which should be physically as close as possible to an acute general hospital. This should be the preferred model for the future.
Matched on
terms: children
Inquiry recommendation
44match
BRIS-174 - NSF must set obligatory and aspirational standards for children's services
The NSF should set obligatory standards which must be observed, as well as standards to which children’s services should aspire over time.
Matched on
terms: children
Inquiry recommendation
39match
IHRD-61 - Paediatric Communication Training
Clinicians caring for children should be trained in effective communication with both parents and children.
Matched on
terms: children
Inquiry recommendation
39match
IHRD-58 - Paediatric Fluid Management Training
HSC Trusts should ensure that all nurses caring for children have facilitated access to e-learning on paediatric fluid management and hyponatraemia.
Matched on
terms: children
Inquiry recommendation
39match
BRIS-139 - Include children's acute and paediatric cardiac services in discrete validation pilot
The pilot exercise for this form of validation should include children’s acute hospital services and paediatric cardiac surgery.
Matched on
terms: children
Inquiry recommendation
39match
BRIS-192 - Develop national standards for all aspects of congenital heart disease care and treatment
National standards should be developed, as a matter of priority, for all aspects of the care and treatment of children with congenital heart disease (CHD). The standards should address diagnosis, surgical and other treatments, and continuing care. They should include standards for primary and social care, as well as for hospital care. The standards should also address the...
Matched on
terms: children
Inquiry recommendation
35match
BRIS-197 - Centralise rare paediatric heart condition surgery to maximum two expert-validated units
Surgical services for children with very rare congenital heart conditions, such as Truncus Arteriosus, or involving procedures undertaken very rarely, should only be performed in a maximum of two units, validated as such on the advice of experts. Such arrangements should be subject to periodic review.
Matched on
terms: children
Inquiry recommendation
35match
BRIS-195 - Require two paediatric surgeons performing 40-50 open-heart operations annually for infants
With regard to the very particular circumstances of open-heart surgery on very young children (including neo-nates and infants), we stipulate that the following standard should apply unless, within six months of the publication of this Report, this standard is varied by the DoH having taken the advice of relevant experts: there must, in any unit providing open-heart surgery...
Matched on
terms: children
Inquiry recommendation
35match
BRIS-193 - Stipulate minimum paediatric cardiac surgery procedure volumes for hospitals to ensure outcomes
With regard to paediatric cardiac surgery, the standards should stipulate the minimum number of procedures which must be performed in a hospital over a given period of time in order to have the best opportunity of achieving good outcomes for children. PCS must not be undertaken in hospitals which do not meet the minimum number of procedures. Considerations...
Matched on
terms: children
Inquiry recommendation
27match
BRIS-198 - Urgently investigate paediatric cardiac surgery units for unsafe low patient volumes
An investigation should be conducted as a matter of urgency to ensure that PCS is not currently being carried out where the low volume of patients or other factors make it unsafe to perform such surgery.
Matched on
classifier match
Inquiry recommendation
23match
BRIS-194 - Establish minimum weekly operating sessions for paediatric cardiac surgeons to maintain competence
With regard to those surgeons who undertake paediatric cardiac surgery, although not stipulating the number of operating sessions sufficient to maintain competence, it may be that four sessions a week should be the minimum number required. Agreement on this should be reached as a matter of urgency after appropriate consultation.
Matched on
classifier match