About the standards
The RCPCH Facing the Future: Standards for children and young people in emergency care is part of a broader suite of RCPCH Facing the Future standards aimed at delivering safe, high quality and integrated care for children and young people (CYP) across the UK.
Central to all these standards is ensuring CYP receive the right care, from the right professional, in the right place, at the right time.
Originally published in 1999, the emergency care standards continue to serve as a key reference for improving paediatric emergency services. The document offers a flexible framework that evolves with new evidence and best practice, supporting healthcare professionals, managers, commissioners and regulators in planning, delivering and assuring quality care, and it acts as a vehicle for standardising emergency care for children across UK.
This 5th edition of the standards document, published in October 2025, builds on 25 years of progress in paediatric emergency care and was developed by the Intercollegiate Committee for Standards for Children and Young People in Emergency Care.
The 82 standards aim to strike the right balance between aspiring to the very best and being pragmatic and locally deliverable.
- There are 13 chapters that address key areas of emergency care:
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- An integrated urgent and emergency care system
- Environment in paediatric emergency care settings
- Workforce and training
- Management of the sick or injured child
- Safeguarding in emergency care settings
- Mental health
- Children and young people with complex needs
- Health improvement and health inequalities
- Major incidents involving children and young people
- Safe transfers
- Death of a child or young person
- Information system and quality care indicators
- Research for paediatric emergency care
Download the full standards document and executive summary below
What's changed?
Building on the foundations of the 4th edition, the 5th edition reaffirms core standards while updating others to reflect new guidance and evolving challenges since 2018. With emergency care for CYP as demanding as ever, this edition aims to support and inspire ED teams to deliver the highest quality care.
There is a new chapter on health inequalities and improvement, which highlights health inequalities as avoidable, unfair and systematic differences between groups, and positions the ED as a key place to empower CYP and families with health promotion.
The document also has a greater focus on the needs of adolescents aged 16-18 years.
Download the What's changed? document below
Further information
A forthcoming RCPCH audit toolkit will support organisations in adopting and benchmarking against the emergency care standards and the wider Facing the Future suite.
The wider suite of Facing the Future standards is currently in revision process and we anticipate publishing in spring 2026. Updates will be posted on this website.
If you would like to access the 4th edition (2018) of the emergency care standards, please contact information.governance@rcpch.ac.uk.