Paediatric medicine

How we help

We diagnose and treat babies, children and young people with serious or complex conditions. We also manage the acute service in the children’s emergency department and run specialist outpatient clinics.

There are specialist paediatric clinics for the following conditions:

• Epilepsy
• Gastroenterology
• Diabetes
• Endocrinology
• Cystic fibrosis
• Respiratory medicine and allergy
• Oncology (cancer).

Regular joint clinics are also held with visiting London hospital specialists in cardiology, immunology, hepatology, endocrinology, late effects oncology, epilepsy, neurology, PKU and renal medicine.

Our specialist diagnostic and treatment services include GI endoscopy, bronchoscopy, and day Case chemotherapy, including intrathecal chemotherapy.

Specialist services and clinics

C1 Esterase Deficiency Clinics

We provide joint clinics with a visiting consultant from Great Ormond Street Hospital twice a year and additional follow-up at The Alex.

Cancer treatment services

The Alex children’s hospital is a level 3 paediatric shared care oncology unit (POSCU) for child cancer patients. This means we can offer inpatient and outpatient cancer care and treatment closer to the child’s home. Cancer treatment is supported by the children’s surgical team. There are also regular clinics with specialists from Great Ormond Street Hospital and Royal Marsden Hospital.

Our team includes:

• chemotherapy trained nurses
• a specialist oncology nurse
• a Clic-Sargent funded social worker and community clinical nurse
• a dedicated pharmacist
• arts psychotherapist
• play specialist
• physiotherapist
• dietician

Useful links:

• ACT – Association for Children with life-threatening or terminal conditions and their families
• ACH – Association of Children’s Hospices
• ClicSargent
• Royal College of Radiologists

Diabetes

The paediatric diabetes team includes consultants, specialist nurses and dietitians. They provide care for children up to the age of 18 years. They review each patient every three months and make regular contact between appointments. They do yearly home visits, and school and nursery visits for new patients.

The team also runs a continuous glucose monitoring system for evaluating children with highly variable sugar profiles and we have an insulin pump service.

Endocrinology

Children with endocrine problems (those affecting their glands and hormones) are usually referred from GPs, community nurses doing growth monitoring, and paediatric consultants who are already seeing the patients for other conditions. Children are assessed with day case dynamic endocrine tests carried out at The Alex children’s hospital.

Epilepsy

We hold weekly epilepsy clinics in our outpatients department and regular clinics with specialists from Kings College Hospital and Evelina London Children’s Hospital for more specialist services.

Ongoing care is also provided by clinics for fits, faints, and funny turns, some of which may be epileptic but children are also referred with non-epileptic conditions.

Useful links:

• Epilepsy Research UK
• The National Society for Epilepsy

Gastroenterology and Nutrition Services

Our gastroenterology service is run by clinical nurse specialists and includes endoscopy, coeliac specialist clinics, hepatology (liver, gallbladder and pancreas) clinics and a nutrition team for both inpatient and outpatients.

Immunology

We hold joint clinics every three months with a visiting consultant from Great Ormond Street Hospital for children who need specialist investigation and treatment into how they respond to infection.

Useful links:

• Max Appeal (Chromosome 22q11 microdeletion syndrome)
• The 22q11 Group
• A-T (Ataxia Telangiectasia) Society
• CGD Support Group/Research Trust

Phenylketonuria

We hold joint clinics with visiting consultants from the Evelina London Children’s Hospital and specialist dietitians at The Alex twice a year.

Useful links:

• PKU information for new parents

Respiratory and Allergy Services

The respiratory and allergy service is run by a consultant paediatrician and a team of dedicated nurse specialists who provide inpatient care to children with respiratory problems and specialist outpatient services in our clinics.

Clinics include those for:

• allergies
• asthma
• broncho-pulmonary dysplasia
• cystic fibrosis

The team also support non-invasive ventilation for children who need respiratory support at home and run a bronchoscopy service.

Infectious Diseases and HIV

We have regular clinics for children with unusual or complex infections.

Cardiology

We have regular cardiology clinics run by our consultant paediatrician in cardiology. We also have regular joint clinics with a consultant paediatric cardiologist from Evelina London Children’s Hospital.

Rheumatology

We have regular consultant led clinics for children’s rheumatology.

Where we are

We are based on Level 6c at the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital (The Alex) in Brighton.

Contact