Child Injury HIT review 2013-14

Dr Julie Mytton, Director of the Child Injury Health Integration Team (CIPIC HIT) reflects on the team’s achievements in 2013-14.

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. Over the last year we have been
establishing ourselves as a network, including a successful launch event held
at the Lifeskills Centre in south Bristol, where local primary school children
learn injury prevention skills in simulated settings.

We have developed a
public and patient involvement strategy and now need to implement this
throughout our activities. Two of our topic themes, head injuries and burns and
scalds, have blossomed with enthusiastic clinical leads, vision and several
grant applications. We are excited about an emerging area of interest, informatics,
and the potential to improve service design and commissioning through improved
quality, linkage and use of child injury data.

The centralisation of specialist paediatric services across
the city in May 2014 will have a major impact on the way trauma care and
rehabilitation are delivered in Bristol and the wider area. This major service
redesign has proved both a challenge and an opportunity for the HIT; a
challenge as clinical leads have had significant additional work demands placed
upon them to prepare for the move, but also an opportunity, since colleagues
have worked collaboratively to devise care pathways for trauma and the chance
to evaluate the impact of the move on patient care.

A workshop for
rehabilitation therapists facilitated through the HIT mapped the complex
pathways of existing provision and helped inform the centralisation process. We
are preparing for our first annual public engagement event in September to
showcase our achievements and raise awareness of child injury prevention and
care.