Information for professionals

Welcome to the ACE Service

Wheeze
Newly-Diagnosed Type 1 Diabetes*
Gastroenteritis
Jaundice*
Croup
Bronchiolitis

* Referrals to the neonatal jaundice and newly-diagnosed type-1 diabetes pathways are currently only being accepted from the children’s inpatient unit at BRI

Thank you for visiting the ACE Service! If you’re new to the service, please take a look at the short films on the right to find out more.

The ACE (Ambulatory Care Experience) Service provides an alternative to hospital referral or admission for children and young people with common acute illnesses like asthma.

Children and young people (CYP) can be referred to the service from Primary Care, as well as the Accident and Emergency Department and Children’s Clinical Decision Area at Bradford Royal Infirmary (ward 32).

Virtual ward

CYP who meet pathway criteria are looked after at home under the care of a nurse and on-call consultant paediatrician in a ‘virtual ward’. The paediatrician takes clinical responsibility for the CYP from the time of referral.

If you would like to refer a child who meets pathway criteria, please click on the relevant pathway icon at the top of this page and follow the referral crib sheet. For assistance please call us on 01274 273354 between 8:30am-8:30pm seven days a week.

Doctors and ANPs in secondary care who wish to refer a child onto one of these pathways should use the relevant icon above and follow the referral crib sheet.

HSJ Award winner

The ACE Service initially launched as a 12-month pilot project in December 2017, but is now fully funded. Less than a year later, it topped the prestigious Urgent and Emergency Care category at the 2018 HSJ Awards.

If you would like to know more about what a family and patient think about our service, please watch our films featuring mum Tahira (centre) and patient Malaika (bottom) on the right of the page and/or contact us.

The ACE service is YOUR service. You can influence our development so please feel free to provide feedback at any time.  Email us here.

We are also on Facebook and Twitter. We look forward to hearing from you!

Who does the service belong to and how does it work?

If you are a Bradford GP, ACE is a service your surgery can offer. It is your service.

ACE is the result of a collaboration between GPs, the integrated care board (ICB) and Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. We are committed to the following vision:

‘The key to delivering effective and urgent care is ensuring that the whole system is designed to support self-care and community care at home, thereby reducing avoidable hospital admissions and facilitating timely early discharges.’

Institute for Innovation and Improvement

The service is the first of its kind in the UK and provides specialist nursing care at home for unwell children and young people who would ordinarily have been referred or admitted to hospital.

Referrals into the service are predominantly taken from primary care, but also from Bradford Royal Infirmary’s (BRI) Accident and Emergency Department, and the CYP Clinical Decision Area on ward 32.

ACE is delivered in the community

ACE is delivered in communities throughout Bradford and staffed by children’s community nurses (band 6), who work from 8:30am-8:30pm, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

Once a CYP has been accepted into the service clinical responsibility lies with the consultant paediatrician on call at BRI.

CYP have 24-hour open access to the CYP Clinical Decision Area on ward 32 for the duration of their care. This is usually for up to three days.

Individual clinical pathways

Individual clinical pathways have been developed with GPs, nurse practitioners, nurses, pharmacists and paediatricians and are based on best available evidence, national guidance and local clinical agreement.

If a CYP meets the pathway referral criteria they are accepted into ACE. Referrals are made by phone and electronically via primary and secondary care electronic patient systems.

The ACE nurse makes initial telephone contact with the family within two hours of referral and arranges a home visit – usually within four hours of referral.

At this visit a focused history and assessment is undertaken. Further home visits or telephone reviews are then arranged.

In addition to acute management the team also delivers a care bundle. For asthma/wheeze this includes support with inhaler delivery, monitoring the effectiveness of treatment, education in managing future episodes, identifying deterioration and smoking cessation advice.

Nurses discuss each CYP under their care with the paediatric consultant. Clinical discussions occur between the ACE nurse and consultant at least thee times a day. For further information please see the FAQs section below.

Looking to refer a patient? Here's all you need to know

Feedback and further information