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Old 12th Dec 2009, 11:37
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homonculus
 
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There is indeed a significant need to longer distance interhospital paediatric ITU transfers in the UK, but unlike adults many need to be undertaken within 4 hours (75% of adults can be next day and the remaining 25% are a specific group of pathology). This produces significant issues with night operations and access at each end.

Nevertheless, paediatric transfers do indeed still make up a significant proportion of all inter ITU transfers.

They need specific medical crew (different from adult ITU crew and certainly not for paramedics!) but in practice do not need any specific changes from an adult ITU ship in terms of the cabin - smaller children travel in incubators which attach to all standard heli stretchers.

We looked at a dedicated system several times but concluded that it was far better to provide dedicated secondary (inter ITU) aircraft that could be used for all ages. The current financial issues in the NHS and the funding problems faced by charities makes this even more pertinent today.

I anyone can raise money for inter ITU transfers, they would do far more for society to target all ages and the effective cost per patient would be significantly less.
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