'Don't put the parent out': parents' perspectives of being present during an inter-hospital transfer

To understand Irish parents' experiences of the inter-hospital transfer of their acutely ill child from a regional hospital to a tertiary children's hospital.

Much of the literature on inter-hospital transfer focuses on the medical outcome of children who have been transferred for specialist care. While parental presence during this journey is the focus of discussion papers, little is known about the experience of parents as service users.

A qualitative design using a Husserlian phenomenological approach was adopted for this study.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten parents between March and October 2014 to explore their experiences of parental presence during the transfer of an acutely ill child. Data were analysed using the modified Van Kaam method.

Two key themes emerged 'don't put the parent out' and 'being a parent'. Given a choice, all parents interviewed would have wished to stay with their child during transfer and the findings portray the specific contribution of parents during the journey.

Not being permitted to travel with their acutely ill child had a negative effect on parents' perceptions of their ability to continue to parent their child during transfer to specialist paediatric services. To address this there is a need for parents to have the choice, when at all possible, to stay with their child at this time.

There is a need to maximise the facilitation of parental presence in an Irish context through the introduction of guidelines to support staff involved in the transfer of an acutely ill child.