Our Centre
The South West UK Children's Burn
Centre is based at Bristol Royal Hospital for Children,
part of University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS
Foundation Trust, and treats around 1,000 children under the age of
16 with acute burn injuries every year. A
proportion of these children, young people and families remain
under our service for a number of years for long term scar
management and follow up care. If burn care services continue to be
needed from 16+ years old, we refer the young person to our adult
burn unit at Southmead Hospital, North Bristol NHS Trust.
Our aim is to provide the highest quality multidisciplinary,
holistic care for all children referred with burns, scalds and
other skin loss conditions including staphylococcal scalded skin
syndrome, Toxic Epidermolysis Necrosis (TEN) and plastic surgery
following septicaemia where needed.
We are the lead children's burn service for the Southwest Burn
Network and as such will accept complex Paediatric Burn cases from
the Central South Coast, South Wales, and the
Southwest.
We provide the highest quality, equitable, child/family friendly
burn care for all children and their families achieving the best
possible outcome following a burn injury. Reasonable adjustments
are made as far as is practically possible in supporting the
individualised treatment and care needs for our children and
families.
Situated on Level 5 within the Bristol
Royal Hospital for Children, we have ward and
rehabilitation paediatric burn beds and high-dependency beds (L1
and 2 paediatric critical care) with thermo-regulated, negative
pressure cubicles. On Level 4 of the hospital, we have access to
Level 3 Paediatric critical care (Paediatric Intensive Care PIC) as
needed and a dedicated thermo-regulated Burns theatre.
Our burns assessment area within the ward on Level 5 has
direct access via a dedicated patient lift from the Children's
Emergency Department (CED) and the on-site helicopter deck. Also on
Level 5, our Burns Outpatient department delivers wound, scar and
follow up clinics seven days a week. Our integrated nursing and
therapy outreach service provides ongoing holistic burn care in the
community saving families the time and expense of travelling into
Bristol.
Our burns multidisciplinary team is an essential resource
in the delivery of expert and timely treatment and care. The core
team includes plastic surgeons, paediatricians, paediatric
anaesthetists, nurses, physiotherapy, occupational therapy,
clinical psychology, and a host of support staff. Teaching is a key
activity delivered by all members of the multidisciplinary team in
addition to clinical treatment and care. When the time is right,
families/carers are encouraged and enabled to provide the
additional care needs for their children as they recover and
rehabilitate after a burn injury. Burns update teaching is also
provided to healthcare professionals both within the hospital and
outside (for example, in Emergency Departments and Minor Injury
Units).
Burn injury prevention is another
key activity for our centre. This includes both primary and
secondary prevention interventions and campaigns. Our centre is
actively engaged in Quality Improvement and Research activity.
Good links with the University of Bristol, the University of the
West of England, and the University of Bath have continued since
2012. Our ongoing mission is to develop a UK research centre of
world-leading excellence crossing clinical and academic boundaries
for real patient benefit, in preventing burns and improving the
outlook for children with burn injuries across all areas of the
burn care pathway.
