Child Injury Health Integration Team review of 2014-15

Dr Julie Mytton, Director of the Child Injury Health Integration Team (CIPIC HIT) gives an update of the HIT’s activities in 2014-15.

The Child Injury Prevention and Injury Care (CIPIC) HIT
considers the prevention, pre-hospital and hospital care, and rehabilitation of
children and adolescents sustaining injuries. Specialist paediatric services,
including trauma care, were centralised at University Hospitals Bristol (UH
Bristol) in May 2014, a major re-organisation of services leading to changes to
care pathways. In March 2015 UH Bristol had its first peer review inspection of
its paediatric major trauma centre services, and were commended on their team
working, communication and patient tracking and data collection systems. We held our first conference
at the Watershed in Bristol in September with Eustace DeSousa, Lead for
Children and Families at Public Health England, as a key note speaker.

We are
strengthening our links with Bristol City Council, who have published a five
year action plan for a Safe Systems approach to road safety. We are working
closely with Avonsafe, an injury prevention partnership covering the West of
England, and have contributed to the update of the West of England Injury
Prevention Strategy. Our joined-up prevention, care and rehabilitation model is
attracting interest, with requests to present at meetings in Southampton,
Exeter and at the Faculty of Paediatric Neuropsychology conference, which this
year focused on traumatic brain injury in children.

Our
burns and scalds theme has secured funding from the Roald Dahl Marvellous Nurse
Inventing Room fund, to work with parents and children on a film of the journey
following a moderate to severe burn injury. We also have a major award from the
NIHR Research for Patient Benefit programme, for a feasibility study of a low
friction environment for treating burn patients. The head injuries team is working
on a feasibility study of support for parents of young children who sustain a
mild head injury, to reduce the risks of post-concussion syndrome. We are
developing ways to record rehabilitation services’ work, and the outcomes for
their patients, so that we have a baseline from which we can assess progress.