Paediatric Retrieval Service

We are delighted to announce that the Paediatric Critical Care Retrieval Service commenced, on a pilot basis from Monday 13th October 2014. It will be known as the Irish Paediatric Acute Transport Service (IPATS), as part of the National Transport Medicine Programme (NTMP). The pilot phase will last 6 months from this date. The service will not be formally launched until the end of this phase, at which time a full review will take place to establish the feasibility, safety and sustainability of the programme.

• The retrieval team will initially begin operating 3 or 4 days a week. We hope to have 5 days per week covered in the coming months. National holidays and weekends will not be covered as yet.
• The hours of service will be from 10:00 until 20:00hrs. The team must return to base by 20:00hrs.
• All requests for service must be made by 16:00hrs for calls in the Dublin region (e.g. Tallaght). Calls from the South, West and North West will have to be received earlier in order to have the team back at base by 20:00hrs referral. The decision to travel will be that of the IPATS consultant, and will depend on the place, time and nature of the referral.
• The service will support the transfer of critically ill infants and children from the referring hospital to the PICU in the Children’s University Hospital, Temple St or Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital Crumlin. Referrals to the general wards will not be facilitated.
• The patient must be accepted by a Paediatric Intensivist in either hospital in addition to any specialist service (e.g. Cardiology). Request for the referral and retrieval team must go through the PICU referral phone line 1890213213. Arrangements outside of this will not be considered.
• IPATS retrieve patients aged from 6 weeks corrected gestational age to the eve of their 16th birthday. The Neonatal team retrieve all babies under 6 weeks corrected gestational age or < 5kgs weight.
• The team will be dispatched from the Children’s University Hospital Temple Street. Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital Crumlin will be hopefully joining the service at a later date.

Additional Information
Feedback to the team may be made through the PICU web page at www.picu.ie.

The Interim Lead for National Paediatric Retrieval is Dr Dermot Doherty who can be contacted at .
The Paediatric Retrieval Coordinator is Anne McCabe who can be contacted on 087 2228869 or 01 8921892 or by email .