16/09/2019 - Permalink

News from our partners: Launch of the Big 6 initiative

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News from our partners, the local NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups

“The Big 6”  initiative to help parents and carers tackle the most common childhood illnesses has been launched by Shropshire, and Telford & Wrekin, Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs).

A set of easy-to-understand advice sheets on The Big 6 illnesses have been created for parents and carers to give guidance on what action to take if a child is ill.

The advice sheets feature the most common illnesses in children aged 0-16 and cover:

  • Bronchiolitis/croup
  • Fever/sepsis
  • Gastroenteritis
  • Head injury
  • Wheezy child/asthma
  • Abdominal pain

Included in the advice sheet is information on what the illness is and details of its symptoms. There are dedicated sections on how parents and carers can help relieve the symptoms, along with practical advice to help their child’s recovery. This includes ways to treat your child at home.

For quick reference there are also phone numbers on where to get further help and advice.

There is also useful information on where to get help depending on how serious the symptoms are. To help parents and carers find out the best place to get help and where to go for treatment there is a colourful traffic light system matching up symptoms with where to go.

Jess Sokolov, Shropshire CCG’s Medical Director, said:

“We want to ensure that when a child is feeling unwell parents have the best information to hand to help them get better.

“These advice sheets are easy to access and understand and will enable parents to get the quickest and most appropriate advice and treatment for their child.”

Dr Jo Leahy, GP and Chair of Telford & Wrekin CCG, said:

“As well as helping parents and carers to understand more about these childhood illnesses we also want to ensure that our health care professionals, such as pharmacists and GPs, all have access to the same clinical guidelines and assessment tools and are able to deliver the same high quality care for the children of Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin.”

The Big 6 advice sheets are available to download from the Shropshire CCG website www.shropshireccg.nhs.uk/ or the Telford & Wrekin website www.telfordccg.nhs.uk/