RCPCH Annual Conference, Glasgow, May 2023

The RCPCH Annual Conference is a great place to hear about new advances across the breadth of paediatric medicine. Have a read below to see the interesting projects happening across the North West that were presented at RCPCH 2023!

“I gave an oral presentation on behalf of the Congenital Hyperinsulinism (CHI) Special Interest Group (SIG) and our work around a national guideline for management of CHI.

The CHI SIG is composed of a multidisciplinary team from around the UK who all have expertise in the area of CHI. We met on a regular basis to create a consensus document on the management of CHI within UK centres. This guideline was designed to facilitate the care of babies with CHI by neonatologists, general paediatricians and endocrinologists within the UK. Our aim was to standardise and streamline practice in a shared care model.

I also co-chaired a workshop on trainee research networks, discussing advice for trainees who wanted to enter the world of academia. We also provided pragmatic and practical tips for those trainees who might want to set up a regional trainee research network in their deanery.”

- Chris Worth, Research Fellow in Congenital Hyperinsulinism | RMCH | UoM

“This poster presents our work looking at the carbon footprint of inhalers for children aged 5-13 years in the severe asthma clinic. We have examined the potential to reduce this carbon footprint and looked at the cost implications associated with this.”

- Dr Rebecca West ST8 and Dr Alice Willson ST6, Paediatric Respiratory Department at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital

“The National Neonatal Audit Programme (NNAP) identified that at our Level 3 Neonatal Unit at Bolton, we had a high rate of Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia (BPD) in preterm neonates <32 weeks gestation. We undertook a quality improvement project to try to understand the reasons for this. This project was looking at postnatal steroids in preterm infants at risk of BPD and is the first part of a wider project looking to prevent BPD. Further interventions include introduction of delivery room continuous positive airway pressure (DR CPAP), delivery room less invasive surfactant administration (DR LISA) and promotion of delivery room cuddles for preterms.

The introduction of a grand round proforma has improved the consistency and timeliness of postnatal steroid use, which were considered (i.e. discussed at grand round, or given) in all eligible babies in the latest cohort, in order to reduce the risk of bronchopulmonary dysplasia in preterm infants.”

- Lucy Hoskyns, Paediatric Trainee

Children’s hospitals and health inequalities: Review of organisational policies

“We presented the first strand of our research commissioned by the Children’s Hospital Alliance. We used a specific health policy research methodology to understand themes from all ten member hospitals. The main themes were: a focus on local population data, having a clear health inequalities strategy in place, the importance of data and dashboards for monitoring, and the role of hospitals as an anchor institution serving the local economy and community. There were some examples of good practice including food packages, travel reimbursement, changing the way hospital prioritise waiting lists and recruitment of joint public health roles in councils and hospitals to streamline interventions. However, we recommended that hospitals needed to consider the voice of CYP and the lived experiences of staff, as well as working towards using paediatric specific data in larger trusts. Our final report with the other research strands including results of our staff interviews and focus groups will be completed in July 2023.”

- Avni Hindocha, Paediatric ST5 trainee and clinical research fellow and Louise Brennan, Public health ST5 trainee and honorary clinical researcher, on behalf of CHIRP team, Lancaster Medical School

“My PhD focuses on the pre-birth conversation between clinicians and parents facing periviable birth. The aim of the PhD is to better understand the variation that occurs in this conversation and how to improve parental access to accurate information to enable them to be meaningfully involved in the decision-making process.

At the RCPCH conference in May 2023, I presented two elements from the ALLIANCE study:

· Oral: A Network Analysis of Perinatal Optimisation Practices for Periviable Infants

· Poster: Qualitative Analysis of semi-structured interviews with perinatal clinicians and parents who have experienced periviable delivery.

The information gained from the ALLIANCE study will be used to create a nationally accessible, parent-informed information resource for parents presenting in periviable labour. Our hope is that this will ensure accurate and consistent information can be accessed by parents, empowering them to contribute to subsequent conversations with the perinatal clinical team about options for management at delivery.”

- Jennifer Peterson, Research Fellow in Neonatology Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust and University of Manchester