The Paediatric Liaison Mental Health Team at the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital in Brighton is a relatively new service in its first year. The service offers assessment to children and young people attending the children’s ED in crisis, as well as offering a service to the hospital wards for children and young people requiring an acute mental health assessment.
Co-Production
From start: No
During process: No
In evaluation: Yes
Evaluation
Peer: No
Academic: Yes
PP Collaborative: No
Find out more
Jo Bullen, Team Leader
Paediatric Liaison Mental Health Team at the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital, Brighton
The Paediatric Liaison Mental Health Team at the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital in Brighton is a relatively new service in its first year. The service offers assessment to children and young people attending the children’s ED in crisis, as well as offering a service to the hospital wards for children and young people requiring an acute mental health assessment. Out-of-hours queries go through the on-call child and adolescent consultant psychiatrist for advice. If a child or young person requires a mental health review, they are normally admitted to await an assessment the following day.
The Paediatric Liaison Mental Health Team operates as a stand-alone service within the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital, with robust pathways developed with local specialist community and inpatient children and young people’s mental health services. The service aims to respond to referrals within one hour, and offers a crisis management and safety plan for children and young people assessed in the hospital at the time of assessment, or for the period of time they are admitted to hospital. Further follow-up is provided by either the community teams or crisis and outreach teams. An estimated 40% reduction in admissions has occurred since the service commenced, although more robust methods of data collection are currently being established, with more accurate information predicted at the yearly data gathering point.
Operating hours
9am-8pm
Age range
Up to 18 years
Geographical area covered
Brighton and Hove
Approximate size of 0-18 population
55,300
Referrals received per year
Projected yearly referral rate of 330
No. referrals seen per year
Approximately 330
% referrals 9am-5pm
51%
% referrals 5pm-midnight
37%
% referrals midnight-9am
12%
Response time
Approximately one hour from referral to response
Workforce
0.2 WTE consultant psychiatrist
1 WTE team leader (band 7 nurse)
2.6 WTE band 6 nurse
0.4 WTE administrator
Out-of-hours provisions
On-call child and adolescent consultant psychiatrist
Service model
Stand-alone paediatric liaison mental health service, with links to specialist community and inpatient children and young people’s mental health services.
