Consultant paediatrician link with GP - Royal Aberdeen Children's Hospital

This page provides a best practice example for standard 3 of Facing the Future: Together for child health standards, which describes how general paediatric referrals are seen in a community setting by a consultant paediatrician and a GP with a special interest in Aberdeen. The joint paediatric community clinic delivers care closer to patients' homes and provides shorter waiting times, which has improved overall patient experience.

Standard 3: There is a link consultant paediatrician for each local GP practice or group of practices.

Model - "Pulling together"

  • All general medical referrals from one GP cluster are triaged by a single consultant, who determines whether to resolve over the telephone, see in community clinic or refer to specialist services. Vetting decisions are consistent with standard practice. 
  • The community clinic is manned by a paediatric consultant and GP with a special interest and patients are jointly discussed before and after the clinic, which is hosted in a primary care setting. The clinic runs one afternoon per month.
  • Between February and September 2018, 26% of referrals were resolved without a face-to-face meeting. Of these patients, 18 were provided with telephone advice, eight letters of advice were written for GPs, and in four cases investigations were arranged. Twenty-four percent of cases were referred direct to specialist services. Community clinic appointments were arranged for 50% of referrals. Waiting time fell from 67 days to less than one month. 
  • IT supports clinic letters and access to hospital records.

Contact for further information

Royal Aberdeen Children's Hospital, NHS Grampian

Dr Steve Turner, Consultant Paediatrician and RCPCH Officer for Scotland - s.w.turner@abdn.ac.uk