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Advice & Guidance - Respiratory

Checked: 29-10-2024 by Vicky Ryan Next Review: 28-10-2026

Overview

There are two Respiratory Advice & Guidance services offered by Bristol Royal Hospital for Children (BRHC) via e-Referral, one for asthma and one for other respiratory problems, as detailed in the sections below.

When non-urgent advice is needed, Advice and Guidance is available via e-RS. Specialists will aim to provide a reply, usually within 2 days, but always within 5 days.

Please be aware of relevant guidelines on Remedy:

Paediatric Asthma Advice and Guidance

This service will be provided by the Consultant Nurse/Consultant in Asthma.

Refer via eRS: Paediatric Asthma Advice and Guidance - BRHC - UHBW - RA7

Examples of suitable requests for advice and guidance for children under 16 would include:

Poorly controlled asthma
Pre-school wheeze
Support for frequent attendees
Asthma management options

Please use the paediatric respiratory advice and guidance service for non-asthma related respiratory queries.

Paediatric Respiratory Advice & Guidance

Refer via eRS: Paediatric Respiratory Advice and Guidance - BRHC - UHBW - RA7

Examples of suitable requests for advice and guidance would include:

Chronic wet cough in young children
Recurrent respiratory infections
Possible obstructive sleep apnoea

Please do not send queries relating to patients aged 16 years or over.

Please use the paediatric asthma advice and guidance service for all asthma related queries.

Red Flag & Urgent Referrals

Emergency referrals:

For children who are significantly acutely unwell with respiratory illness, the current referral pattern into the Children’s Emergency Department should continue.

Urgent referrals:

When urgent advice is needed, but when a child is not acutely significantly unwell, then consultant paediatric respiratory advice is available via the consultant mobile phone (available Monday to Friday 0900-1700). UHB switchboard have this number, or it is available through the department secretaries 0117 342 8329 / 0117 342 8258. These referrals may be triaged into either an urgent telephone consultation or a face to face appointment when necessary.

Examples of suitable requests for urgent referral would include:

Persistent noisy breathing in infants, particularly with feeding difficulties or not gaining weight
Children who have had a chest x-ray with significant changes e.g. lobar collapse
Persistent cough with other clinical features e.g. persistent chest signs, not gaining weight, persistent increased work of breathing

Efforts are made to ensure the accuracy and agreement of these guidelines, including any content uploaded, referred to or linked to from the system. However, BNSSG ICB cannot guarantee this. This guidance does not override the individual responsibility of healthcare professionals to make decisions appropriate to the circumstances of the individual patient, in consultation with the patient and/or guardian or carer, in accordance with the mental capacity act, and informed by the summary of product characteristics of any drugs they are considering. Practitioners are required to perform their duties in accordance with the law and their regulators and nothing in this guidance should be interpreted in a way that would be inconsistent with compliance with those duties.

Information provided through Remedy is continually updated so please be aware any printed copies may quickly become out of date.