Impact of specialised paediatric retrieval teams

BMJ 1996;312:119 (13 January)

Letters

Impact of specialised paediatric retrieval teams

A regionally based retrieval service is warranted

EDITOR,--Joseph Britto and colleagues' study has an inherentflaw because it used a scoring system that has not been validatedfor use more frequently than at 24 hour intervals.¹ Nevertheless,we agree with the authors' view that critically ill childrencan be transferred by specialist paediatric retrieval teamswith minimal morbidity and mortality. We carried out a prospectiveaudit of 302 retrievals over 27 months, which showed only twocritical incidents, both of which were detected and successfullymanaged by our team. Over the same period 180 patients weretransferred by referring hospitals, with substantially morecritical incidents during the transfer. These transfers involveda wide range of conditions for which intensive care was required(table).

Diagnostic categories for patients transferred by
different teams. Figures are numbers (percentages)
----------------------------------------------------
                  Transfers by        Transfer by
Diagnostic    Great Ormond Street     local team
categories          (n=302)            (n=180)
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