Facing the Future - standards for children and young people in emergency care settings

These standards aim to ensure that urgent and emergency care is fully integrated to ensure children are seen by the right people, at the right place and in the right setting.

Emergency departments that see children submitted data to our national audit, and results show how well standards are being met across the UK and where improvements are needed.

About the standards

The landscape of urgent and emergency care provision for children has changed significantly in recent years and continues to evolve at pace, albeit with much complexity and variation across the UK. These standards aim to ensure that urgent and emergency care is fully integrated to ensure children are seen by the right people, at the right place and in the right setting.

There are 70 standards, covering:

  • an integrated urgent and emergency care system
  • environment in emergency care settings
  • workforce and training
  • management of the sick or injured child
  • safeguarding in emergency care settings
  • mental health
  • children with complex medical needs
  • major incidents involving children and young people
  • safe transfers
  • death of a child
  • information system and data analysis
  • research for paediatric emergency care.

Audit toolkit

This self-reported audit toolkit can be used by service leads to evaluate how well their children's emergency service aligns with the guidance provided by the standards. The toolkit was piloted in August 2018 across the UK and has been refined to support quality improvement and service development.  

We recommend that the audit be completed by the multidisciplinary emergency care team as a tool for quality improvement. The audit toolkit and supporting guidance document can be downloaded below. For help and support in using the audit toolkit please contact the Health Policy team at health.policy@rcpch.ac.uk.

Audit results

In summer 2022 we published the summary of audit findings reported by 91 emergency departments from 2018 to early 2020

Thanks to all those who have shared the results of their local audits with us.

Further advice on the standards

  • Further details around the staffing requirements for emergency departments that treat children and young people has been prepared by the Care Quality Commission. This is available for download below.
  • The Committee has prepared further advice around standard 17 (triage). This is available for download below.  
  • Facing the future standards can be used to help shape how new pathways of care are developed and implemented. One example is the British Orthopaedic Association’s 2021 pathway for paediatric forearm fractures. The RCPCH statement on using this pathway with the Facing the Future standards is available for download below.