title: Audit of telephone advice in a paediatric accident and emergency department.
abstract: This paper audits the telephone requests for advice to a paediatric accident and emergency (A&E) Department over a 4-week period. All calls were answered by senior nurses. Most calls were received in the early evenings when the A&E department was busy. Parents were the most frequent callers and the majority of calls were for children under 5 years of age. The problems presented were wide ranging but advice over the telephone meant that many unnecessary visits to hospital were prevented. The public use the A&E department as a primary source for health advice and very few of the calls resulted in admissions. This telephone advice service is effective and helpful to the public but time consuming for A&E nursing staff at peak workload periods in their own department.
authors.affiliation: Department of Accident and Emergency Medicine Royal Liverpool Children's Hospital, UK.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Molyneux
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Jones
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Aldom
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Molyneux
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003376:Counseling / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004739:England; D006776:Hospitals, Pediatric / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015277:Hotlines / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D009741:Nursing Staff, Hospital; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014600:Utilization Review