Proposed transfer of children's inpatient service from Paisley to Glasgow

Parents, councillors and representatives from voluntary organisations met on Wednesday, September 28 with NHSGGC’s medical director and doctors from the Royal Alexandra Hospital and Royal Hospital for Children which is based at the new Queen Elizabeth University Hospital Campus in the south side of Glasgow, to discuss the proposal.

At the public meeting the audience heard from a panel of children’s doctors and senior nurse that the move would improve the care for children in Clyde by giving them access to world class facilities.

Clinical staff already working at the new Royal Hospital for Children discussed a number of key benefits at the new hospital, including:

The latest technology and specialist children’s equipment available in the hospital including nine dedicated children’s theatres, five state of the art laparoscopic theatres, and a paediatric critical care unit of 20 intensive care beds and two high dependency beds.

The full range of paediatric specialists together working in one hospital, dedicated diagnostic facilities providing the full range of imaging services including ultrasound, CT, MRI and nuclear medicine studies on site.

On site access to the full range of diagnostic laboratory facilities.

A number of specialist adolescent facilities including zone 12, the medicinema and dedicated young people workers. There are also dedicated age appropriate facilities for younger children such as the teddy hospital

Single rooms with en-suite patient accommodation within the RHC offer dedicated facilities to support parents with fold down beds.

Dr Jennifer Armstrong, medical director, said: “The new Royal Hospital for Children is one of the finest paediatric teaching hospitals in the UK and the largest in Scotland. The entire focus of RHC is around children and young people, with care provided in a child friendly environment.

“Under this proposal, young patients from Clyde would benefit from the same first class, state-of-the-art facilities as other children who already attend the hospital from across the West of Scotland.”

Parents were also reassured that, under the proposals, the majority of care provided to their children would continue to be provided locally, with a full range of outpatient and community services and access to the emergency department remaining at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley.

Under the proposal outpatient and day care paediatric activity would remain local at the acute hospitals in Paisley, Greenock and at the Vale of Leven.

The current engagement period continues until Monday, October 11 following which the board will decide whether the proposal should be the subject of a 12 week public consultation.