Barnet has a policy that children under one are referred, I believe.
I work at Edgware Urgent Treatment Centre and do not personally refer
all such babies. The exceptions to Barnet's basic policy mean that I
can (I spent long enough on paediatric secondment when I was an A&E SR.)
I think that such a policy is understandably safer, and practical
when there is a paediatrician on site. This is not the case in
Edgware and I feel resources would not be best used if I were to have
to send a child with post-immunisation pyrexia by ambulance to you
(if they came from Hendon or Golders Green) or to Barnet/Northwick Park etc.
I don't know if the Royal College of Paediatrics & Child Health has a
specific policy but I would not be surprised if some of the pressure
for this sort of policy started there.
--
Helen D. Vecht
[log in to unmask]
Somewhere around North-West London
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