03/09/2026
Happy birthday to our colleagues over on PHDU! 🥳🎂
Today, we're celebrating 25 years of our Paediatric High Dependency Unit at Hull Royal Infirmary!
In that time, we have supported more than 10,000 young patients and their families, from newborns to teens, with conditions such as meningitis, severe respiratory illness and cardiac issues as well as providing intensive care after surgery.
Vanessa Brown, now Deputy Nurse Director for Children, Young People & Neonatal Services, was the charge nurse tasked with creating the unit at the start of 2001 alongside consultant paediatrician, Dr Hilary Klonin. Vanessa says:
“Opening a dedicated paediatric high dependency unit gave us the chance to bring some really skilled people together and focus our care on some of the hospital’s sickest children in one place. Over the 25 years countless staff have developed their skills within paediatric high dependency care and it is the staff who have made this unit a success.
“Twenty-five years on, I think I’m one of the few people who are still here and working in paediatrics to have been around for that full journey; it’s unbelievable really to think it’s been a quarter of a century.
“Every now and then, we’ll get a parent of a child on the ward telling us they were also looked after on PHDU as a child, and that makes me feel really old!
“So much has changed in that time though, from the types of treatments we are able to offer to the technology we have to help us and even how we try and keep children entertained during those long days on the ward.
“Advances in medical care also mean better outcomes for children; some children don’t need to spend as long in hospital as they would have done 10 or 15 years ago, and other children can stay with us for longer without the need to transfer to more specialist centres. Sending children further afield for care in Leeds or Sheffield, for example, used to be quite common at one point but as our skills, our expertise and our facilities have developed, we’re pleased that the vast majority of patients and their families can stay close to home now and near to their own support networks.”
Anne Dalby, ward sister for Woodland Ward, the Paediatric Assessment Unit and PHDU says:
“One of the best things for me about PHDU is the environment we’ve created. We have a number of familiar faces, children who are really quite poorly so they’re often in and out, and it’s so important that we get to know those families and build relationships with them. There are times when, as a nurse, you can spend practically an entire shift with a single family, so getting to know people, becoming a friendly face for them and providing continuity of care all makes their stay in hospital so much easier.
“Having a baby on the ward who is really sick and then seeing them go home well, or having a family bring their child back in to see us and they’re fully recovered and full of beans has to be one of the most rewarding things in the world."
Read more about PHDU in the comments below 👇️
