Many children will need to move from being treated by paediatric services to being under the care of an adult specialty. During this time, young people may feel lost and unsupported because they are leaving the team and healthcare system they are accustomed to .This can lead to less engagement, and consequently poorer healthcare outcomes. Conversely many adult services are not set up to accommodate children that have more complex needs requiring multidisciplinary input. It is also recognised that the needs of adolescents are considerably different to children or adults and subsequently their healthcare should be tailored and developed accordingly.
At STPN, we are aware that the challenges experienced above my both patients and their families, and health professionals are common and not service specific.
To start to address some of these issues the STPN held a Getting Started with Transition Webinar on the 24 of June 9am – 12pm. Presentations covered a variety of topics from both patient and clinician viewpoints, acute and chronic conditions and resources that are available to support teams. We were pleased to work in conjunction with the Burdett Trust, Oncology and Congenital Heart Disease networks, as well as views from a Youth Worker and a Consultant from Adult Services. As a result of the webinar, these are few of the aspects attendees were keen to focus on:
Based on interest across the network region, we hosted an Adolescent Health Steering Group Meeting in September where we recognised how integral the Burdett Trust is with delivering this work seeing as they already provide much of this support through their National Transition QI Programme.
We are now hosting the QI Programme collaboratively with the Burdett Trust, the itinerary for this is provided below. If you are not already invited to these sessions, please contact sara.mahjabin@gstt.nhs.uk to be added.