Children’s respiratory service
Our world-class respiratory service cares for children affected by breathing difficulties such as asthma, lung infections and sleep disordered breathing.
Paediatric respiratory service London
Our world-class respiratory service cares for children affected by breathing difficulties such as asthma, lung infections and sleep disordered breathing.
We work with our patients to manage acute (short term) and chronic (long term) conditions.
Our paediatric respiratory consultants provide expert care for a range of conditions including cough, wheeze, allergy and support patients with complex respiratory needs who have been referred to our paediatric intensive care unit (PICU) and neonatal unit (NICU).
As a centre of excellence within Evelina London Children’s Hospital, our consultants work closely with a multidisciplinary team including respiratory physiotherapists, specialist nurses and respiratory physiologists to provide valuable integrated care for children – all at the same location.
Snow Leopard ward
Our respiratory ward, Snow Leopard, provides a ‘home away from home’ environment for children with long-term ventilation needs. The ward provides a comfortable place to help ease the move from hospital to home for long-term ventilation children and their families.
For patients with long-term conditions, we work closely with our adult respiratory service at the Lane Fox Respiratory Unit to ensure a smooth transition from children’s to adult services.
Designed with the needs of children, Snow Leopard ward is a warm environment with bright colours and artwork to provide a holistically aesthetic facility to support wellbeing and help our young patients’ and families to feel at ease.
Specialist respiratory services
We provide complex care for children requiring multidisciplinary diagnostic and interventional support such as our complex airway service and long-term ventilation (LTV).
Our long term ventilation service was established in 2012 and currently supports over 300 patients needing long term home mechanical ventilation. Our young patients are often under the care of other clinical teams such as neonatology, ENT, cardiology, neurology, neuromuscular and neurodisability and benefit from teams of specialists dedicated to providing care personalised to each patient.
Children on long-term ventilation are those who need the help of a breathing machine for months or years at a time. Some children may use a face mask, or have a plastic tube (tracheostomy) that is inserted into their windpipe to create an artificial airway.
Our team also provide comprehensive management of children with a wide range of respiratory long-term conditions such as severe asthma and allergy, chronic lung disease of prematurity, congenital lung abnormalities, sickle cell disease with chest complications, neuromuscular and children with complex neurodisabilties.
Children’s sleep centre
Located on Snow Leopard ward is our children’s sleep centre, offering detailed sleep studies to support patients requiring long-term ventilation.
With three dedicated bedrooms providing a full range of inpatient diagnostic sleep studies, sleep studies are carried out overnight with the option for daytime studies.
Good sleep is important for all children’s growth so our team work with children and families to develop and support good sleep habits. We plan our patient care to lessen the number of times they may need to be woken during the night and promote a restful ward environment to make it easier for children to get to sleep in the evening.
When it is time for a child to leave the ward, our team will help to make sure their sleep routine can be put in place at home.
