Shaping the future of children’s healthcare at the Great North Children’s Hospital
21st March 2025 • Great North Children's Hospital Foundation, NewsThe Great North Children’s Hospital – one of only 14 major children’s medical centres in the UK – was the focus in the latest in our NHC Presents series. Hosted by Newcastle Hospitals Charity, and chaired by Dr Mike McKean, paediatric respiratory physician at the Great North Children’s Hospital, the panel event celebrated some of the innovative charity-funded projects aimed at improving the health of children and young people across the region and beyond.
With an emphasis on looking toward the future and taking a holistic approach to children’s healthcare, speakers included children’s neurologist Dr Anna Basu and Simon Bromhead head of development at Ways to Wellness who discussed the SPACE Pilot.
The SPACE pilot sees social prescribing link workers placed alongside clinicians treating children with chronic conditions. It helps families access a wide range of emotional and practical support including benefits and grant information and school and education arrangements.
Initially funded by Newcastle Hospitals Charity and Ways to Wellness, the project was recently awarded £200,000 from the NHS Charities Together Innovation Fund.
Next up was Dr Emily Parker who spoke passionately about her work exploring ways to reduce the carbon footprint of Newcastle Hospitals. She said: “If we are talking about the future of paediatrics or the future at all – we have to think about sustainability because if we don’t, there isn’t a future.”
Emily is one of two sustainability fellows funded by Newcastle Hospitals Charity and one of the projects she has been leading looked at the wide-ranging benefits of swapping liquid medication to tablets for children. Research showed that not only is there a huge carbon emission saving by swapping liquid to tablet but also a cost saving.
Keen to stress that sustainability is not just about carbon emission savings Emily explained: “When we think about care we need to think beyond the hospital and when we think about sustainability we need to think beyond our carbon footprint.” An example of this is a project to design a garden in collaboration with young patients from the Great North Children’s Hospital.
Putting children and young people at the centre of their care was a common theme throughout the discussions and to demonstrate how important this is Jo Ball great north youth collective engagement coordinator shared some of the work of the Young Persons Advisory Group North England (YPAGne).
Made possible thanks to the generous supporters of Newcastle Hospitals Charity YPAGne started in 2015 and was formed to inform and influence research designed for children and young people. Now with 75 members the group plays an important role in the design of research projects in the North East.
A huge thank you to all our speakers, and to everyone who came along. If you couldn’t join us a recording of the discussion is also available.