To visit our general transition homepage click  here.

Transition in the burns service

You might have heard your team talk about transition and wondered what it is. These pages have been designed to help provide information and support as you become more independent and what this means for your burn injury.

If you have been cared for by the children's burns service you may need to carry on being seen by the adult burns service from when you are about 16 years old. This will depend on whether or not your injury needs on going monitoring and treatment. Making sure you feel supported and listened to before, during and after moving your care from the children's to the adult's burns service is important to us.

Members of the children's burns service, including the clinical psychologist, will start speaking to you about the adult service from the age of 14 years as a routine part of your clinic appointments. When you and the team feel that the time is right to move they will talk to you about sharing information with the adult burns service. This will really help to make sure that the move from one service to another is as smooth as possible.

The biggest difference in adult services is that you will make your own decisions about your care and treatment with your consultant. You will be given the chance to make more decisions for yourself, but will be given the information you need to make them, and there will still be people around to offer advice and support as and when you need it. In the adult service the team will usually speak to you much more than to your parents or carers. They can still attend appointments with you and support you but you will lead the way when making decisions and be expected to take more responsibility for attending your appointments. The team won't discuss treatment plans or anything else with your parents without your consent especially from when you are 18 years old. This can be as much of a change for your parents as is you and can take a bit of time to get used to. The team can support you with this.   

When you attend your first appointment in the adult service it may be helpful to write a list of your concerns and questions in case your mind goes blank such as:

• Can I look around the adult ward before my operation?
• What do I need to do to look after my wounds?
• Are there any other young adults I can speak to who have already moved to the adult service?
• Can I speak to a psychologist about how I'm feeling about my burn?

Our overall aim is to help you feel confident living with your burn injury and to make sure that you have all the information that you need to help you feel supported as a young adult. You can read more about transferring to the adult burns service here.