Staff crisis at under-pressure child units

HOSPITALS are struggling to ensure they have a senior children’s doctor available during their busiest hours, a report suggests.

The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) made a plea to ministers to expand the paediatric consultant workforce to ensure there is one present between 8am and 10pm. Currently, this is only the case in 38.8 per cent of units during the week and 28.6 per cent at the weekend, its survey found.

The RCPCH has estimated that across the UK the consultant paediatric workforce is short of 752 full-time equivalent posts.

Children’s units are understaffed and under pressure, the body said. Dr Carol Ewing, the RCPCH’s vice president for health policy, said: ‘It is down to the sheer dedication of our doctors that children are being treated as safely as they possibly can on paediatric wards in the UK but the risk of “burn out” is all too real.’

She added that ‘growth in the paediatric workforce is crucial’ to ensure children were seen by a consultant within 14 hours of admission and full coverage at peak times. The RCPCH has called on the Government to centrally fund the number of paediatric trainee medical places to expand the workforce.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said ‘there are currently a record number of consultants working in our NHS’ and that it was training 1,500 extra doctors a year from 2018.