Child Injury Health Integration Team highlights in 2016-17

Dr Julie Mytton, Director of the Child Injury Health Integration Team (CIPIC HIT) gives an update of the HIT’s activities in 2016-17.

CIPIC HIT was set up in 2013. The strategy for the HIT at that time reflected local priorities and service changes. These included developing trauma care pathways following centralisation of specialist paediatric services and the designation of the Bristol Royal Hospital for Children as the children’s major trauma centre for the south west of England.

CIPIC has provided a network for members from across partner organisations to consider child injury issues during its first three years. But by 2016 we recognised the time had come for a strategic review. That summer we agreed to focus on where the HIT had the greatest potential to add value for the partner institutions.

So our revised aim is to work collaboratively to support the commissioning and delivery of activities to reduce injuries, and their consequences, in children and young people. We will focus on data and prevention.

HIT members are supporting Bristol Public Health’s child injury health needs assessment, which will contribute to the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment. This will show what data is high enough quality to inform commissioning, care and research, and where there are gaps. We will make the needs assessment publicly available online.

We will also focus on injury prevention challenges that are local priorities. The team will explore the feasibility of injury prevention activities, and the opportunities to deliver and evaluate interventions.

In December 2015 we were successful in an application for funding to the British Red Cross, in collaboration with the Avoiding Hospital Admissions (ITHAcA) HIT. This project explores the potential for first-aid education to support the public’s decision-making when seeking urgent care. We surveyed patients that were using urgent care services across the city and interviewed both patients and service providers. Our study report will be published through the British Red Cross website in the Spring of 2017. We will work with commissioners and service providers to consider the local implications of our study.

In April 2017 we were awarded £10,000 from the NIHR Brain Injury Healthcare Technology Cooperative. This was to explore whether it’s possible to identify modifiable factors for non-fatal brain injuries in children presenting to the Bristol Royal Hospital for Children. This study will begin in August 2017.

Bristol Health Partners has awarded us more than £6,000 for meetings with patients, their families and other stakeholders, as part of our Child Injury Health Needs Assessment. Through this project we will also explore children’s, and their families’, preferences and experiences of receiving rehabilitation as an inpatient or an outpatient.

We would be delighted to hear from anyone interested in working with us or finding out more about our work.