Countries: Wales

Name

Welsh Paediatric Surveillance Unit

Website

www.welsh-paediatrics.org

Year established

1994

Association

Welsh Paediatric Society

Population under 15 years

0.65

General information

The WPSU was set up in 1994 as a joint venture between the University of Wales Departments of Child Health (Prof. J. Sibert) and Public Health Medicine (Prof. S. Palmer). The management of the system was reorganised in 1996 in conjunction with the Welsh Paediatric Society (Dr. J. Morgan as co-ordinator), which supports the system. Funding has also been obtained from the Welsh Office for Research and Development and latterly the National Assembly for Wales.

The Welsh system looks at conditions in children in Wales, which are considered too common for a UK study or too uncommon for a local hospital to perform. The WPSU uses similar methodology to the orange card system of the British Paediatric Surveillance Unit (BPSU) with whom we have a close relationship. We endeavour to discuss all our new projects with the BPSU to ensure that there is no overlap:one study was suspended (subdural haemorrhages) whilst the UK study was performed.

Monthly green cards listing the conditions currently being studied are distributed by post or by email to consultant paediatricians and senior doctors working in Wales and covering an approximate child population of 560,000. The green card or email card is then returned to the new Surveillance Office with Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff.

Mailings can be extended to include other consultants in Wales, particularly if older children may be affected. This has been very successful in studies involving Acute and Chronic Renal failure and Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Paediatricians along the border of England have also been very helpful where some Welsh children have been treated outside Wales. Latterly general surgeons and neurologists throughout Wales have also been very helpful with the studies on gall stones in children and juvenile myoclonic epilepsy.

It is important that the system encourages and supports all doctors involved in the projects, feeding back as much information to individual doctors as possible and thereby increasing the awareness of the studies. The system is there for everyone to use and we hope that paediatricians in training will also see this system as an opportunity to help with research and audit projects. They may initiate studies under supervision.  

The unit looks to provide the Welsh National Assembly with data that can assist in the planning of Health Care for Children in Wales, to act as a resource for the determination of the epidemiology of diseases in childhood and to assist audit and research. 

Conditions studied

The following studies have been completed successfully:

acute and chronic renal failure, congenital adrenal hyperplasia, coeliac disease, complicated pneumonia including empyema, childhood tuberculosis, children in housefires, the critically ill child, facial palsy, hypernatraemia in infancy, inflammatory bowel disease,  juvenile idiopathic arthritis, jvenile myoclonic epilepsy, Marfan's syndrome, newly diagnosed malignant disease, neonatal abstinence syndrome, newly diagnosed diabetes, non type 1 diabetes mellitus,  palliative care, physical child abuse, septo-optic dysplasia, severe child abuse, splenectomy and hyposplenism, subdural haemorrhage, vitamin D deficiency.  

Three studies were unsuccessful and were withdrawn:

 Ingestion of household products, haemoglobinopathy, adverse effects of CAM (adverse events from complementary and alternative medicine).

Current studies include:

Gall stones in children, craniosynostosis, long term ventilation, nosebleeds in infancy, deaths in children with epilepsy, neonatal hypoxic-ischaemic encephalopathy. 

Contact

Dr Gwyneth Owen - Chair,  c/o Ms. H. O'Connell - Administrator WPS
Administration
Child Health Directorate
University Hospital of Wales
Heath Park
CARDIFF
CF14 4XW
Tel: 029 2074 3946 (8.00am - 4.30pm, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday)

Email:   heather.oconnell@cardiffandvale.wales.nhs.uk