By Royal College of General Practitioners (2015)
Children make up more than a quarter of emergency department attendances in the UK and in England alone there has been a 28 per cent increase in admissions for children to hospital over the last ten years. Healthcare professionals are warning that unless there is an overhaul of unscheduled care services, there is a risk that growing demand will result in poorer outcomes for children. This set of standards says that in order to deal with these pressures, and to improve child health outcomes, not only do unscheduled care services need more investment but there also needs to be a shake-up of how services are designed, with more children being cared for outside the hospital, in the community and closer to their home.