​If you are stepping up into your first registrar post or stepping back from a period of time out of training (maternity leave, research, travelling etc) then join us on the 15th July for the Step up/Step back study day at UHS. 

The course provides a safe, protected environment to discuss the anxieties many trainees experience in moving on to a new step in their careers, and to practice some of the clinical skills involved in leading the management of acutely unwell children and neonates. 

​The Step Up/Step Back course utilises high fidelity simulation to give trainees the experience of managing the acute presentations of a variety of paediatric and neonatal conditions, such as Sepsis, Extreme Premature Delivery, Seizures, HIE and neonatal ventilation. The course also contains lectures covering generic registrar skills, managing ward wounds and junior staff, multitasking, child protection and other topics.

Register for your place by going to the Step up/Step back page in the trainees section. 

Please be advised that there has been an increase in the number of children with acute pertussis (whooping cough) in the region, including one recent death in PICU. These cases appear to be more common in young children who did not receive in-utero vaccination.

​A guideline from the South Thames Retrieval Service (STRS - based at the Evelina) is included below with recommendation for early escalation to PICU if children with pertussis are showing an increased or rising WCC due to the recognised high risk of morbidity and mortality from leucocytosis and organ failure. 

Public health recommendations are also in place for paediatric staff who work with pregnant women, neonates or infants to consider the need for booster vaccination to prevent nosocomial spread. Please discuss this with your local occupational health department. 

Please see the alert below from the Wessex & Thames Valley Paediatric Critical Care Network

The Thames Valley and Wessex Paediatric Critical Care Network have finalised a guideline pathway for the management of children with difficult IV access. This pathway offers suggestions for how to escalate issues with IV access based on the clinical need along with options for vein-finding adjuncts which may be of help. The pathway has space to be personalised for your Trust with contact numbers etc to make management of this issue easier in acute situations. This pathway will be supported by a difficult IV access practical study day which will be available later in the year. 

Find the new pathway here - www.piernetwork.org/DIVA

​The Wessex Children’s & Young Adult’s Palliative Care Network have had a busy few months setting up training days, a quarterly journal club and network forum meetings to discuss complex cases and share experience and challenges. We held an Advance Care Planning training day in November exploring and training on the Children & Young Persons Advance Care Plan version 5, and a Practical Symptom Management training day in February, diving deep into symptom management at the end of life. We are developing guidelines and shared policies to support equitable end of life care across Wessex and working with integrated care boards, managed clinical networks and providers to support the development of sustainable 24/7 services. We are approaching the end of another 6 months and a Wessex 6 monthly update will follow shortly. 

The Wessex genetics service have released new guidance for clinical teams to help with requesting genetic testing for acutely unwell children or children with developmental delay. These new pathways can be found at the links below or under the genetics tab on the Guidelines page:

• R14 Genome Sequencing Flowchart for Acutely Unwell Children
• Whole Genome Sequencing Flowchart for Developmental Delay

The conference committee is pleased to release the provisional programme for PIER 2024 which is taking place at Hope Church, Winchester on the 8th and 9th October. 

We are proud of a rich and diverse programme which covers everything from an in-depth look at for asthma and allergy through to ultrasound guided IV access for beginners and how civility in the workplace saves lives. Have a look at the provisional programme below...

Early bird ticket pricing will be released after the Easter holidays, so now is a good time to book in your study leave requests if you can. Early bird pricing will only be available for a short time, so make sure you get your tickets early!

We will have more information and a finalised programme in the next few weeks. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments below. 

More information will be released on the conference webpage

The RCEM position statement November 2021 recommended that the use of the SNAP regime to treat paracetamol toxicity should become the default standard practise in all emergency departments. Prior to this uptake of the SNAP regime had been sporadic across the UK with some early adopter sites utilising in place of the previous 21hr standard 3 bag protocol with the benefit of a reduced length of NAC treatment.
 
As per the Lancet publication 2019, The SNAP regime has been shown to be as effective as the traditional regime in preventing liver injury, with fewer adverse reactions (anaphylactoid reactions).

www.piernetwork.org/paracetamol-overdose-snap-protocol.html