As a quality improvement initiative, the Children’s Post-Anaesthetic Care Unit (PACU) team at Leeds Children’s Hospital have started trialling the use of ‘Parent Pagers’ in operating theatres at the hospital to ensure parents know exactly when they are needed after their child’s surgery.Gogs Byrn, charge nurse on the unit, developed the idea as part of a Mary Seacole NHS leadership programme. He commented: “Parent Pagers offer parents or carers a sense of reassurance and freedom of movement – to go to the hospital cafe, have a comfort break etc – whilst their child is in surgery.
“Using mobile phones can be problematic as the signals can be unreliable in the Children’s Hospital and some parents may not have them, so the pagers are a better way of contact parents once their child has woken up from their operation.
“The pagers also help guarantee that parents are close by when needed meaning they can be quickly reunited with their child in Recovery, providing reassurance for both.
“So far the feedback has been really positive, with parents saying how much of a benefit the pagers are and how easy they are to use, as they work in a similar way to the pagers commonly used in restaurants.”
Gogs and the PACU team hope to roll out Parent Pagers to the parents of all children undergoing surgery in the Leeds Children’s Hospital in the next few months. It’s hoped that this innovative system will benefit the thousands of young patients who undergo an operation in Leeds each year.
Funding for the project was generously provided by the Leeds Children’s Hospital Appeal, with PACU Nurses contributing to the fundraising by selling pies to their hungry co-workers!
Help and advice was also provided by Dr Avanish Tantry and staff on the C.A.T. (Children’s Assessment and Treatment) Unit who have trialled pagers in their busy clinics.
