Staffordshire Children’s Hospital at Royal Stoke celebrates 10-year cardiology service milestone
Consultants at Staffordshire Children’s Hospital at Royal Stoke are celebrating a decade of its paediatric cardiology service, helping thousands of patients and their families receive diagnostic care closer to home.
The University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust (UHNM) consultant-led service provides local cardiology clinics to almost 1,000 patients a year who would otherwise have had to travel to Birmingham for outpatient appointments.
The service, which offers care to patients up to the age of 16, also provides inpatient cardiac assessments in wards and departments across Staffordshire Children’s Hospital at Royal Stoke, along with up to 30 cardiology clinics per year run jointly with visiting paediatric cardiologists.
Dr Voula Mikrou, Paediatric Consultant with expertise in cardiology at UHNM said: “The aim of the service is to deliver diagnostic patient care closer to our local population. Prior to the service’s launch in November 2014, patients and their families with suspected cardiac problems would have to travel Birmingham Women’s and Children’s Hospital for appointments.
“We are a small team made up of two consultant paediatricians with a special interest in cardiology, along with three visiting paediatric cardiologists from Birmingham Women and Children’s Hospital who carry out all-day joint clinics once a month. We are supported by a small number of healthcare assistants, cardiac physiologists from UHNM’s Heart and Lung Centre and a paediatric cardiology secretary.
“The service provides over 130 local cardiology clinic and 24 joint-clinic days per year, allowing over one thousand patients and their families to receive diagnostic treatments closer to home using electrocardiogram (ECG), echocardiography and Holter monitors. New referrals are made into the service by GPs, general and community paediatricians, and geneticists from across the whole of Staffordshire, from Stoke-on-Trent down to Rugeley. However, only one and a half per-cent of these patients would be referred onto other tertiary centres for further investigative procedures.
“We see new patients who may be suffering from a heart murmur, palpitations, chest pain, dizziness, and fainting, or a genetic or inherited disorder that put them at risk of having a heart condition. We also see patients who have received chemotherapy during and after cancer treatment. Follow-up appointments are also provided for patients with stable congenital heart disease and heart rhythm disorders.”
The service is classed as a level three local children’s cardiac centre, part of the West Midlands Congenital Heart Network with two ultrasound machines allowing consultants to carry out over one thousand echocardiograms a year.
It also carries out around 200 reporting ECGs a year for primary care and Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS).
In addition to offering outpatient services, the service provides cardiac assessments to patients admitted to wards across Staffordshire Children’s Hospital including the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) and the Children’s High Dependency Unit (HDU).
Dr Mikrou, who has worked at the service at UHNM since 2018 said: “I’ve always had a passion about paediatric cardiology, every patient that comes to clinic is different and special. What I really like about the speciality is that on most occasions I’ll be able to provide an answer to the family who come to me in clinic. There can be so much anxiety, so to be able to tell a parent in one clinical appointment that your child’s heart is healthy provides me with great satisfaction.
“I am delighted and proud we have reached this ten-year milestone. The greatest change I have seen in the service is the number of referrals, as in the past clinicians would use their judgement and would have just monitored children, but having access to technology like echocardiography we are now able to provide a definite answer in a one-stop clinic and our service has grown because of this.
“Looking forward, we are hoping to expand investigations to things currently provided only in tertiary centres, like exercise tolerance tests, and implement a 24/7 echocardiography service at Staffordshire Children’s Hospital at Royal Stoke.
“I’m very proud of the service we offer, that’s why I love coming to work every day. I feel proud of my contributions and seeing how much the service has grown over the past ten years.”