Children's accident and emergency

Our dedicated children’s accident and emergency department (A&E) is located at St Mary’s Hospital. Children attending the department are seen by paediatricians, A&E doctors, emergency nurse practitioners and GPs in a purpose-built, child-friendly environment. The department is separated from but works alongside our adult emergency department.

St Mary's is the major trauma centre for north west London and all children in this region that have significant injuries are transported to us for specialist care.

We are actively involved in research in paediatric emergency medicine, producing numerous publications and contributing to multi-centre studies. We are a member of PERUKI, the paediatric emergency research of UK and Ireland, and actively contributing to the development of the specialty of paediatric emergency medicine.

Clinical trials

We are actively involved in many research projects and contribute to national studies and patients are recruited as appropriate to studies, with full information given and consent sought.

Education

We welcome elective students to the department, please contact the electives office at Imperial College for more information.

Children's accident and emergency

Address

Paediatric accident and emergency department
First floor
Queen Elizabeth Queen Mother (QEQM) building
St Mary’s Hospital
Praed Street
London W2 1NY

Hours

24 hours a day, seven days a week

Contact information

We cannot provide clinical advice over the phone from A&E. For any concerns or queries regarding your child's health, please call your GP or NHS 111 or in an emergency call 999.

Consultants

Dr Rebecca Salter, lead consultant
Dr Ian Maconochie
Professor Julian Redhead
Dr Asif Rahman
Dr Francesca Cleugh
Dr Vanessa Merrick
Dr Neil Thompson
Mr Nic Alexander

Nurses

Ian Gilmour, lead nurse and emergency nurse practitioner
Stephanie Barnes, senior nurse and nurse educator

What to expect when you come to our children's accident and emergency department

As a parent or caregiver, you should attend A&E with your child.

If you can, it is useful when visiting A&E to bring any medication your child uses, including creams and inhalers, and also your child’s ‘red book’.

On arrival, you will be asked to register and give details of contact numbers before being sent into the paediatric area.

Please note that we are a teaching hospital, so medical students may be present for some consultations. If you do not wish to have them in the room please let the nurse or doctor know and the students will be asked to step outside.

You and your child will initially be seen by a specialist children's A&E nurse who will ask a few questions about the injury or condition and take some observations, such as your child's temperature.

The nurse will then assess whether your child needs to be seen by our emergency department doctors or a GP or emergency nurse practitioner working in our urgent care centre that is provided by an external company Vocare. More unwell children or those with significant injuries are seen promptly in our A&E department by our specialist paediatric emergency medicine team.

Waiting times will vary due to the unpredictable nature of A&E. We work hard to see children as quickly as possible and prioritise those who are more unwell.

From the time your child is registered at A&E, we aim to see, treat and discharge them within four hours.

After an initial examination in our department your child may need to wait to be seen by a specialist doctor.

If any follow-up care is needed, the team seeing your child will inform you of this. This follow-up care may be with your own GP.

Refer to this service

GP

Please discuss acute referrals with the appropriate bleep holder who can be contacted via switchboard (020 3312 6666). 

• Paediatric registrar bleep 1202
• Orthopaedic SHO bleep 1515
• ENT SHO bleep 1311
• Surgical SHO bleep 1518

Paediatric emergency department
First floor
Queen Elizabeth Queen Mother (QEQM) building
St Mary’s Hospital
Praed Street
London W2 1NY

Please send children to the department with a covering letter.