This page provides a best practice example for standard 1 of Facing the Future: Together for child health standards, which outlines the GP hotline service at Wexham Park Hospital. Providing telephone communication allows GP to access advice on admission avoidance, outpatient department avoidance and clinical advice. Paediatric consultants are able to control the flow of patients into their units, ensuring children are seen at the right time, in the right place, by the right person.
Standard 1: GPs assessing or treating children with unscheduled care needs have access to immediate telephone advice from a consultant paediatrician.
Model
- Wexham Park runs a GP hotline service, which allows GPs to call for advice on outpatient avoidance for one hour every day.
- The hotline service is also open to midwives and nurse practitioners.
- Between May 2016 and March 2017 the hotline service was extended to operate between 09:00 and 22:00 on weekdays and 09:00 to 17:00 on weekends. The service was used by 70 different GP practices over this period, with 722 total calls being made. Data collected during this period showed that 50% of GPs calling for admission avoidance were given advice and required no follow-up and 75% of those calling for clinical advice required no follow up.
Contact for further information
Wexham Park Hospital, Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust
Dr Jo Philpott, Consultant Paediatrician, Wexham Park Hospital - joanne.philpot@fhft.nhs.uk