Hospital @ Home

Hospital @ Home provides care in the home for acutely unwell children.

The medical care is delivered by a team of specially training nurses working in partnership with acute paediatricians at the Whittington, UCH and Islington Community Paediatrics. The benefit of the service is children and young people can be looked after in their home environment, miss less school and parents can carry on caring for other sibling. This is especially pertinent to children and young people with special educational needs and disability for whom going to a hospital environment can be even more stressful.

The nurse led team can provide medical care for a baby, child or young person who is acutely unwell and in need of IV antibiotics, regular monitoring, fluid intake support, and treatment for an acute asthma exacerbation or phototherapy. The type of illnesses they can provide care for include pneumonia, croup, bronchiolitis, asthma, gastroenteritis, urinary tract infection, skin infection, periorbital cellulits and jaundice. There are clearly defined criteria for which children can be safely managed at home and which need to be admitted to hospital.

The Hospital at Home team will work collaboratively with key professionals providing on going care for the child.