Children with prolonged fever (≥5 days) is one of the most common regional referrals to the paediatric infectious diseases team. Despite this, we have very little data on this cohort and often lack follow up after the initial advice call. This limits our ability to establish the effectiveness of our service.

We have introduced a new electronic form to capture referral information and to allow us to follow up patients in the medium term. Any phone calls to the paediatric infectious diseases team about children with fever ≥5 days should also be accompanied by completion of the electronic form. The form does not replace a telephone call, so do not complete the form in isolation. It is brief and should take <5 minutes to complete.

A short follow up form will be sent to the patient’s admitting consultant after four to six weeks to capture outcome information, to help evaluate our service for this cohort of children.