Bradford Teaching Hospital’s Paediatric Emergency Department (PED) is seeing a sudden surge in young children suffering from winter infections and is appealing for only one adult to attend with each patient.
Due to the rules on social contact being relaxed this year and the subsequent rise in Strep-A cases nationally, health professionals are urging families to only send one parent or carer with each child in order to stop over-crowding.
Worried parents are bringing in children who have sore throats, a high temperature and difficulty breathing, increasing demand on the city’s PED.
“We are seeing record numbers of children attending our PED,” said Shaun Milburn,
Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust’s Deputy Director of Operations in Unplanned Care whose remit includes Bradford Royal Infirmary’s PED. “Usually we see between 70 to 110 children coming to the unit a day, but recently we have been seeing 150 as parents are worried that their children might have strep-A due to increased media coverage.
“We are also seeing more children presenting with respiratory infections than we have had in previous years because of the relaxing of lockdown rules.
“We are appealing for families to follow to our one child, one parent rule as recently we have seen multiple members of families attending with a child, meaning that there has been significant overcrowding.”
Doctors are typically seeing children generally suffering from minor breathing conditions such as respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), bronchiolitis, paraflu or rhinovirus, the symptoms of which are a cough, runny nose and fever.
During the surge in paediatric cases, the Trust is re-introducing the one adult, one child policy with immediate effect (the exceptions will be if the child has significant disabilities).
Consultant in Paediatric Emergency Medicine, Dr Elizabeth Jones, added: “Over the weekend we have seen significant overcrowding in the department, particularly the waiting area, which poses a real risk to safety.
“If a parent or carer is worried about their child’s health please don’t hesitate to bring them to our unit, but please can only one adult or carer attend per child as this will help to keep the unit safe and keep waiting times down.”
Dr Jones also urged parents to consider seeking help from their GP, local pharmacy, NHS111 or https://wyhealthiertogether.nhs.uk/
