DOCTORS and nurses in Southampton have created a pioneering scheme to treat children at home which could save thousands of pounds.

A team from Southampton Children’s Hospital have developed a new treatment service which will be on offer to youngsters with complex infections.

The paediatric outpatient parental antibiotic therapy (p-OPAT) service will be led by clinicians from the hospital.

It was inspired by a Southampton team who realised medically stable young patients in need of prolonged courses of antibiotics through a tube in the vein could receive this treatment safely outside of hospital.

Previously these patients would be admitted for the duration of their antibiotic course which for some is up to six weeks.

The service was launched by Dr Sanjay Patel, a consultant in paediatric infectious diseases, and Helen Green, pictured below, a clinical nurse specialist in paediatric infectious diseases.

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It will be delivered in partnership with community nursing teams across Hampshire, Dorset and Wiltshire.

Dr Patel said: “For patients, p-OPAT means earlier discharge from hospital, a quicker return to education and lower risk of developing healthcare-associated infections.

“In terms of parental benefit, they have one point of contact with a clinician or clinical team, rapid return to domestic life to care for other children and resume work and less time spent waiting around on hospital wards.

“But, most importantly, children have to continue receiving the same quality of care at home as they would have received in hospital.”

The team at Southampton Children’s Hospital treat children suffering from a range of severe infections, including bacteria in the blood or blood poisoning, bone and joint infections, heart infections (endocarditis), brain abscesses, meningitis and central line infections.

As part of the scheme, Ms Green became the first and only nurse in the country trained to insert peripherally inserted central catheter lines in children under general anaesthetic using ultrasound guidance.

This scheme will mean that once a young patient has returned home, their customised antibiotics continue to be made in hospital and administered by community nursing teams.

For children on complicated antibiotic therapy, innovative pump bags known as elastomeric devices will be used to administer antibiotics continuously over a 24-hour period.

It comes after a 21-month study which revealed 80 patients who would have required a total of 1,472 hospital bed days were treated at home instead and saved the hospital £250,000.

Dr Patel added: “This service really is at the forefront of patient innovation in the NHS and has resounding benefits for patients, their families and healthcare organisations.

“It is a fantastic example of hospital and community professionals working together to improve patient care and we are delighted feedback has been so positive among parents and their children. The model is now being adopted by other leading children’s hospitals in the UK and that is a real credit to Southampton and our region.”