Some children are diagnosed with a heart condition before or
soon after birth and others are diagnosed later in childhood. Heart
conditions take many forms, some of which will require little or no
treatment for a child to live a healthy life. Others, however, will
need one of the many types of intervention provided by our
service.
If your child is diagnosed before or soon after birth, you will
be cared for by the fetal cardiology team. For more information
about this service and team, please click here.
If during childhood your family doctor believes your child may
have a heart condition, they will refer him or her to the Bristol
Paediatric Cardiology service. You may be seen by a cardiologist in
the team near where you live or referred to Bristol Children's
Hospital. If your child suddenly becomes unwell and is
admitted to your local hospital with a suspected heart condition,
your local team will be given support and advice from the
specialist team in Bristol. This often happens via a telemedicine
link. If necessary, a retrieval team will come from Bristol to
assess and stabilise your child before bringing you and your child
to Bristol.
Meeting the cardiologist
Your child will have a designated consultant cardiologist and
cardiac nurse specialist. There are eight consultant cardiologists
and six cardiac nurse specialists. Each consultant cardiologist has
a designated cardiac nurse specialist.
If you live in Bristol, your child's consultant cardiologist
will be one of the eight consultants who are based at the BRCH.
If you live in the south-west outside of Bristol, your
consultant will be the cardiologist who comes to that locality: see
list below.
Your child's care will be coordinated between the consultant
cardiologist and the local paediatrician, who has a specialist
interest in cardiology. This will mean that your child will be able
to be seen in the outpatients department of your local hospital.
However, cardiac catheterisations and cardiac surgery will take
place in BRCH.
What happens next?
In your consultation, the cardiologist will talk to you about
your child's heart condition and may ask to conduct further
investigations such as an Echocardiogram (Echo),
Electrocardiograms (ECG) or cardiac catheterisation to gather more
information.
The cardiologist will also talk to you about whether they would
like to monitor your child through outpatient appointments or
whether an intervention should be planned.
Coming to the cardiology clinic?
Click here for more
information.
Planning for surgery? Click here for more
information.
Planning for cardiac
catheterisation? Click here for more information.
