Does PEWS relate to ED outcome for children brought in by ambulance?
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Do Paediatric Early Warning Scores relate to Emergency Department outcome for children aged 0-2 years who are brought in by ambulance?
IRAS ID
172763
Contact name
William M Broughton
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Imperial College London
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
n/a, n/a
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 4 months, 30 days
Research summary
Paediatric conveyance in ambulance services varies from service to service, and the only notable guidance on this issue came from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) some time ago. The advice from the RCPCH was that all children under two years of age should be taken to an Emergency Department (ED) for assessment and children aged 2-5 years may be referred back to their GP if ED assessment not required. Following a systematic review, there is no evidence to suggest this practice should be continued or disputed as this area of clinical practice is yet to be explored. Anecdotal experience of the PI indicates this guidance may be too cautious, resulting in unnecessary admissions to ED’s. However, a study in 2010 of ambulance provision for children demonstrated issues in training, education and availability of suitable equipment. This then poses the question, are ambulance clinicians suitably trained and experienced to make the above decisions – but that is beyond the scope of this project. What this project does aim to investigate is the relationship between Paediatric Early Warning Score (calculated from ambulance report form data) and ED outcome recorded by hospital staff. If it can be shown that a low score has a significant relationship with an ED outcome available to Paramedics there is scope to design a clinical prediction rule to allow safe non-conveyance of children by Paramedic staff, that is informed by the results of this research.
REC name
London - Stanmore Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/LO/0503
Date of REC Opinion
16 Mar 2015
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion