Earlier this week, the Victorian government announced the launch of the Urgent Concern Helpline, a new family escalation system to ensure concerns are heard. This service will allow patients, and their families, to raise concerns about a patient’s care, condition or deterioration, and get an immediate response.

Northern Health is proud to have been chosen to run the first trial of this service from next week, before rolling out at other select Victorian health services.

The helpline, part of the Safer Care for Kids initiative created by Safer Care Victoria, will be run by the Victorian Virtual Emergency Department. It responds to a report that investigated devastating outcomes resulting in child deaths across the state when early opportunities to intervene were missed. The helpline will provide an important escalation process for patients and their families when they have concerns about a patient’s condition deteriorating or feel their concerns are not being heard.

Dr Joanna Lawrence, Director of Paediatrics for the VVED, has been instrumental in establishing this service, alongside Director, Dr Loren Sher and support from the Department of Health.

“This is a great opportunity for each health service in Victoria to revisit local escalation policies, and for the helpline to act as a safety net when local escalation fails. By partnering closely with all hospitals across the state, we hope to see the use of the helpline in the future become almost redundant as each service strengthens it’s response locally,” said Dr Lawrence.

Northern Health was selected as a pilot site to test the helpline. Not all approached sites accepted the opportunity to be involved and it is testament to Northern Health’s safe, kind and together values that this was recognised as in the best interest of our children, but also as an opportunity to look at where Northern Health can do better.

Northern Health Resus Coordinator Elise Sutton has championed the cause locally and pulled together the key stakeholders to allow a robust response to any escalation.

Minister for Health, Mary-Anne Thomas earlier this week said, “It’s our responsibility to learn from every sentinel event to ensure it never happens again and that Victorians are receiving the best possible care.”

“We’re making significant changes to the way our health services respond to patient deterioration because we know this has historically, and unacceptably, been a significant factor in paediatric sentinel events. The new Urgent Concern Helpline will support families and patients and ensure they have somewhere to turn if they feel their concerns aren’t being heard.”

Featured image: VVED Nurse Julius.