‘The Consultant Connect service is a partnership between us in secondary care and primary care where we can provide urgent advice without the child necessarily needing to be seen on the day.’
Advice from paediatrics consultants one phone call or message away
Grange University Hospital in Aneurin Bevan University Health Board (UHB), Wales offers primary care two rapid Advice & Guidance options to help keep paediatric patient care in the community where possible. We interviewed Paediatrics Consultant Dr Nakul Gupta to find out more.
1. How is Consultant Connect used for Paediatrics advice in your area?
‘We use Consultant Connect to offer the following to primary care:
An Acute referrals Telephone Advice & Guidance line which has several consultants on the rota available during agreed hours to answer calls from primary care. This line is for primary care clinicians needing advice as to whether the paediatrics patient needs to be seen at outpatients or the urgent assessment unit or if they need to come at all.
A non-urgent Telephone Advice & Guidance line with optional messaging. This is for instances where primary care clinicians might be considering referring the patient to outpatients, or they might just need advice on what they can do within primary care to avoid a referral for the patient. Clinicians use the Consultant Connect App to phone or message us. The messages are routed to our specialty inbox.’
2. What has been your experience of answering Advice & Guidance queries from primary care?
‘I am part of the acute rota, and I find it rewarding and useful. The Consultant Connect service is a partnership between us in secondary care and primary care where we can provide urgent advice without the child necessarily needing to be seen on the day. The service enables children and their families to be streamlined into a more appropriate service, meaning they don’t always need to be seen in the hospital in these challenging times.
I am also part of the non-urgent outpatient service, and again it is a partnership between us in secondary care and primary care. GPs that I’ve spoken to have found it useful to discuss their uncertainties. Together we can work through the uncertainties and provide them with advice. The Messaging Advice & Guidance service is beneficial as we can have a to-and-fro conversation. We can streamline the number of children coming into our outpatient services by about a third using this service.’
3. Can you provide a recent example of when you answered an Advice & Guidance call through the service to benefit a patient?
‘I recently answered a call via the outpatient advice line. The patient was a young child who had recently moved from a different country. The child had a rare metabolic disease. The child had been under follow-up in his country of origin, and the GP was wondering how best to get him into follow-up within our services. I was able to point the GP and child to the relevant specialists within our health board who had experience in dealing with these rare metabolic conditions. This enabled the GP to refer the child immediately to the right place, avoiding a referral to a general paediatrician (who may not have experience with this rare condition).’
You can read the interview in full by downloading this PDF : 5 minutes with Dr Nakul Gupta
Watch our video clips of Dr Gupta talking about his experience below:
If you would like to discuss how we can help your NHS area, please contact us: hello@consultantconnect.org.uk or 01865 951 207.
