From the middle of August 2017 the Children and Teenage Oncology and Haematology unit at Leeds will be using a new way of responding to phone calls from parents when a child is unwell, or from older teenagers who may ring in themselves.

This is called a ‘Telephone Triage Tool’. When you ring Wards 31, 32, 33 or the Day Unit with a concern regarding your child (or yourself!), the nurse may ask you more questions or slightly different questions to those they have asked you previously.

The Telephone Triage Tool is a structured assessment tool which will help nurses to document the conversation they have with you and help decision making around the care of your child. It is a national tool, which is already used in a number of treatment centres. It will help guide decisions about the need for patients to come for review in hospital. You can find out more on the CCLG Website http://www.cclg.org.uk/triagetool

The questions the nurses ask will be in a slightly more structured format, and will be related to your concerns and the treatment you or your child is having. The questions they will ask about whether a child or a teenager has a temperature, or other signs and symptoms will remain much the same. They will ask questions about areas that may not be a concern at the time of your call, for example about pain, bleeding, or sickness.

Please be patient as the nurses get familiar with the tool; it may take a while but our colleagues from around the country tell us they became quicker and more familiar with it in quite a short time.

The contact numbers you should ring for advice have not changed:

8am-5pm Monday-Friday please ring Day Unit 0113 3927179 or 011339 27379

5pm -8am Monday to Friday and all day/night Saturday and Sunday

Ward 31 0113 3927431

Ward 32 (BMTU) 0113 3927432

Ward 33 0113 3927433

If you would like some further information about the tool, please speak to:

Sister Julie White or Sister Jenny Brandon (Day Unit)

Sister Karen Potts or Sister Jennifer McWee (Ward 31)

Sister Carol Gardner (Ward 33)

Sister Julie Brown (Ward 32)

Or your ‘Key Worker’ (Macmillan Nurse)

To read more about the changes please go to: http://www.cclg.org.uk/triagetool

Thank you, The Telephone Triage Steering Group