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Audit of telephone advice in a paediatric accident and emergency department
1Department of Accident and Emergency Medicine Royal Liverpool Children's Hospital, UK.
Insights
Senior nurses provide valuable telephone health advice to parents of young children, preventing many unnecessary hospital visits to the pediatric accident and emergency (A&E) department.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Emergency Medicine
- Healthcare Management
- Nursing Practice
Background:
- Accident and Emergency (A&E) departments often serve as primary healthcare resources for the public.
- Telephone-based health advice is a common service provided by A&E departments.
Purpose of the Study:
- To audit telephone advice requests to a pediatric A&E department.
- To assess the effectiveness and impact of telephone health advice services.
Main Methods:
- A 4-week audit of all telephone calls to a pediatric A&E department.
- Calls were answered by senior nurses.
Main Results:
- Most calls occurred during busy early evenings.
- Parents were the most frequent callers, primarily for children under 5.
- Telephone advice prevented numerous unnecessary hospital visits.
- Few calls resulted in hospital admissions.
Conclusions:
- The telephone advice service is effective and beneficial for public health.
- This service is time-consuming for A&E nursing staff during peak hours.
Abstract:
This paper audits the telephone requests for advice to a paediatric accident and emergency (A&E) Department over a 4-week period. All calls were answered by senior nurses. Most calls were received in the early evenings when the A&E department was busy. Parents were the most frequent callers and the majority of calls were for children under 5 years of age. The problems presented were wide ranging but advice over the telephone meant that many unnecessary visits to hospital were prevented. The public use the A&E department as a primary source for health advice and very few of the calls resulted in admissions. This telephone advice service is effective and helpful to the public but time consuming for A&E nursing staff at peak workload periods in their own department.