General Paediatrics
Our vision: to provide first class health care to children and their families in Merseyside and beyond.
We aim to promote General Paediatric care for children and in interaction with other subspecialties to promote “whole child” approach.
We aim to promote training and research in general paediatrics.
Our general paediatric service provides consultant led holistic care to children (0-16 years) local to Alder Hey and further afield from North Wales to North West.
Our Service:
General paediatrics encompasses wide variety of common childhood problems. We offer excellent care to children with simple medical problems and support other specialist teams in providing a family centred “whole child” care for children with complex medical problems.
Children attending our service have direct access to wide range of clinical staff with specialist expertise and dedicated paediatric nurses with a strong multidisciplinary support including dieticians, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and speech and language therapy services and paediatric pharmacists.
Team: General paediatrics service is led by a team of 9 enthusiastic consultants, and includes 2 Associate Specialists, 2 specialty doctors and 3 Specialty trainees, 3 GP trainees and 3 foundation doctors.
Our Consultants are:
Atrayee Ghatak
Francine Verhoeff
James Mwenechanya
Margaret O’Connor
Princy Paul
Theo Anbu
Specialty and associate specialists
Magid Taufik - Associate Specialist
Shams Tabrez - Associate specialist
Andi Deshpande - Specialty doctor
Nayana Veradpande - Specialty doctor
Advanced Paediatric Nurse Practitioners
Annette Hall
Simon Minford
General Paediatrics Service statistics: (numbers in glance)
- Admission per anum 5463 (2010)
- Offers 33 paediatric clinics per week
- General Paediatric and ambulatory clinics had 7409 clinic attendances in last year
- Waiting times, 88% of GP referrals to general paediatrics wait less than 5 weeks for first appointment.
Admissions:
There were 5463 general paediatric admissions in 2010 with an average of 105 admissions per week.
Medical admissions Unit (MAU)
MAU’s philosophy is to keep children in hospital for the shortest possible period and to discharge home safely providing support and care at home through Children’s Community Nursing Team (CCNT).
MAU and MAU2 are located on second floor of the main building. These are short stay (<48 hour) medical wards and children who are expected most likely to be discharged within 48 hours are admitted on MAU.
After admission a general paediatric consultant will see your child within 24 hours or sooner if clinically indicated. A parent can stay overnight with their child on the ward and parents and siblings can visit most of the time.
MAU has dedicated paediatric trained nurses and Advanced Paediatric Nurse Practitioners (Annette Hall & Simon Minford). Nursing staff are trained for making assessments on condition of a child, nurse led discharge and work closely with medical staff to ensure appropriate and efficient bed side care.
Current average length of stay on MAU is 1.75 days (last 6 months up to August 2011).
Children with general paediatric team may be admitted to any other ward depending on bed availability if they need to stay more than 48 hours. Medical team doctors will be available regardless which ward your child is admitted to.
More unwell children are cared by general paediatric team in high dependency unit (HDU). Some children will need more intensive care and will be transferred or admitted to PICU. In PICU the intensive care team consultants lead the care and management of very sick children. We work closely with Paediatric intensive care unit and will continue to provide care once child is discharged to a general medical ward from PICU.
During admission access is available to a variety of medical, surgical specialists and diagnostic services to help with diagnosis and management of patient with complex problems.
Clinics:
We offer a wide range of out patient’s services through our 33 clinics every week. General Paediatric and ambulatory clinics had 7409 clinic attendances in last year.
88% of GP referrals to general paediatrics clinics wait less than 5 weeks for first appointment. These weekly clinics are:
· 12.5 general paediatric clinics
· 9 ambulatory clinics,
· 4 Alder Hey @ clinics
· 2 diabetes clinics
· 1 chronic fatigue clinic
· 3 Allergy clinics
· 2 ward discharge clinics
If you are unable to attend an appointment we are happy to offer and re-arrange an appointment that is more convenient to you. Please contact Patient Access Centre (PAC) on
0151 252 5358 Opening hours are Monday–Friday 9.30am–1pm & 1.30pm- 6pm to re-arrange or cancel an appointment.
Please note if your appointment was booked through the Choose & Book system by your GP then you need to ring the ‘Telephone Appointment Line on 0845 608 8888’ as directed on your letter.
Ambulatory Service: Rapid Access Clinics
The rapid access clinics (ambulatory service) have been running since the early 1990s and have since grown. The aim of the rapid access clinics is to provide rapid access to care without hospital admission and also, if admission is necessary, to discharge patients home as soon as possible.
We recognise that a number of conditions can be safely managed in clinic settings provided an urgent clinic appointment with a senior clinicians is available. The rapid access clinics were set up with this aim in mind trying to provide appropriate senior led care. At core of ambulatory care (rapid access service) is the principle of delivering: “the right service, in the right way, at the right time, in the right setting”.
The service is consultant led and patients will always see a senior clinician. At present we run 8 clinics a week from Monday to Friday. We accept referrals from general practitioners, Accident and Emergency and also community based health care professionals. We aim to see children within 2 working days of referral.
We are continually looking at ways to expand and improve our service.
Alder Hey @
This is a consultant paediatrician delivered outpatient service developed to provide care nearer to a families home, and with closer links to their community based care providers, such as their GP, health visitor or school nurse. The consultants you would see in Alder hey @ clinic are part of Alder Hey general paediatric consultants you would see at Alder Hey Paediatric outpatient clinics.
Parent feedback has been extremely positive, with children often being seen faster at these clinics, public transport is better for families, and there is easier parking.
Clinics are currently at Kirby (Tower Hill clinic), Huyton (Bluebell clinic), Halewood (Health Centre), and Bootle (May Logan clinic). Maps and travel directions are available at the following link [add a link to page on website with leaflet and maps for these clinics]
If you would prefer to be seen at these clinics let your GP know when booking your appointment, or contact patient access at Alder Hey.
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome / Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME) Service Alder Hey
Alder Hey is one of the 10 specialist centres in UK which provide specialist CFS/ME services to children. This is a general paediatrician led multidisciplinary team (MDT) including senior physiotherapist, CFS/ME specialist nurse, psychologist, consultant psychiatrist and a medical secretary. We provide both diagnostic and therapeutic services to children and young people with this condition coming from Liverpool, Knowsly and Sefton areas. As appropriate we have provided diagnostic services to children and young people from other regions.
Our services include comprehensive medial assessment to exclude underlying treatable medical conditions causing the symptoms, providing symptomatic advice (pain control, relaxation, sleep management and feeding difficulties like nausea), physiotherapy, hydrotherapy, psychological assessments, and psychological interventions like CBT, pacing and advice and support for educational activities including support for exam concessions. We work closely with our hospital school and other agencies.
Majority of our patients are managed as outpatients, we have the provision of managing children as inpatients if needed. We have weekly specialist CFS/ME clinics. We accept referrals from GP’s, paediatrician’s, specialists, school nurses, physiotherapist, psychologists, psychiatrist and A&E. Our 2010 audit shows that 60% of our patients are seen within 8 weeks of referral (majority would have been already seen by a paediatrician). If children and young people will have severe symptoms we endeavour to see them as early as possible.
Young people and families have been very positive and appreciative of the value of our service.
How to Refer:
- Usually a referral is made by your GP through national choose and book system. Your child’s health visitor or practice nurse can also make a referral if appropriate for a routine clinic appointment.
- Ambulatory clinic appointments are available at short notice for semi-urgent cases and require referral by your child’s GP.
- Children with more urgent conditions can be referred by your GP to the on call medical team on the same day and will be seen promptly in Accident and Emergency department on arrival.
Conditions we treat
We care for young patients with a wide range of medical conditions (A to Z) including:
- Abdominal pain
- Acute illnesses
- Allergies
- Asthma and respiratory tract infections
- Congenital anomalies
- Constipation and diarrhoea
- Chronic fatigue syndrome
- Diabetes Mellitus (Type 1)
- Eating disorders
- Failure to thrive
- Faints
- Feeding issues
- Growth and development issues
- Headaches
- Heart murmurs
- Infections
- Lumps and bumps
- Non specific parental concerns
- Prolonged jaundice
- Seizures
- Unwell child
- Urinary tract infections (recurrent)
Conditions we don’t treat
We usually do not treat following as alternative services are available as below:
- Enuresis and incontinence – Children’s Community Continence Service
- Developmental delay - Community Paediatricians
- Behavioural problems - Community Paediatrician/CAMHS
- Child protection - Rainbow team/Community Paediatrician
Patient support services
Our patient support services available at Alder Hey include:
- Play specialists and school
- Chaplain service for pastoral support
- Psychology team
- Social workers
- Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS)
Patient aftercare:
Follow-up is available depending on the condition. This may be via the patient's own GP or in a consultant outpatient clinic.
How to contact General Paediatric team:
- For those children under the care of general paediatric team, if you have any concerns about your child’s well being you can contact the consultant in charge of your child’s care through consultant’s secretaries.
- If you don’t know who your child’s consultant is you can call general paediatric secretaries and they will be happy to help!
Key contact numbers:
General Paediatrics Secretaries:
Patient access service (PAC) to re-arrange or cancel an appointment: 0151 252 5358 Opening hours are Mon – Fri 9.30am – 1pm & 1.30pm- 6pm
For Choose & book appointments by your GP you need to ring the ‘Telephone Appointment Line on 0845 608 8888’ as directed on your letter.
