Our History

The Kennedy Report on the Bristol Inquiry is an intense and comprehensive analysis. Its recommendations bear revisiting and keeping in focus. Mention of PiP (Part 2, Chapter 29, para 23) comes as a surprise but indicates the focus on the quality of care that comes from a a collective attention to standards of service and of care that should be in place for children.

“The Partnership is keen to adopt the principles of Managed Clinical Networks in any developments/changes in service configuration. This Plan is therefore paralleled by work to develop clinical guidelines and integrated care pathways. In progressing this work the Partnership has forged links with the West Mercia Guidelines Group.to develop clinical guidelines and the Partnership’s website is being used to publish and develop guidelines.” (Report of Year 3 p20) “The multi-disciplinary diabetes project group was established to agree and introduce a common database, develop joint clinical guidelines and audit…Since agreeing to purchase the ‘Twinkle’ database software approved by the British Diabetic..Read More

Copy of full paper here.

Investment but in return for reform

54 delegates, drawn from across the health service disciplines, took part in a 9-5 workshop which used a ‘gaming’ process to review the pattern of service provision across the Partnership area and to ask how it might be managed against the service priorities identified by the Partnership over a 5 year period. Since the mapping exercise was ‘floor-based’, participants were advised to “dress causally for the workshop. You may also want to bring along a cushion!” Using consultant medical posts as a proxy for services, it asked what if there were a modest increase in services, and what if there..Read More

Event to clarify priorities for inclusion in work plan and to secure commitment from members to resource this through subscriptions

PiP was formally established over a tight series of meetings. On 21st January, an Open Meeting was held from 4pm to 7pm, with supper, at the Post-graduate Medical Centre behind Staffordshire General Hospital. Many of the working meetings had taken place there. Of greatest interest was the response to invitations to become a subscribing member of PiP that had been set out in the business case for the Partnership presented at the September Conference. 11 of the 14 organisations that had been involved in the preparatory work confirmed they would become members. Whilst there were nominations for each of the..Read More

The first conference of Partners in Paediatrics was held at Keele Hall, Keele University. The purpose was to make and test the case for developing more concretely thinking about collaboration over services, workforce and education among a group of paediatric service providers in the north West Midlands and southern North West regions of the NHS. Preparations were thorough and drew together the planning work carried out through 1998. View here Clinical Directors invited their Chief Executives to attend (a good number did) and David Fillingham, then Chief Executive at the North Staffs Hospitals and passionate about organised efforts to improve..Read More

The name Partners in Paediatrics appears in writing for the first time on a letter, dated 10th March 1998, to members of the Service Mapping Subgroup. Before this date, various combinations of ‘paediatric’, ‘services’, ‘collaboration’, ‘provider’ and ‘consortium’ can be found. Partners in Paediatrics disappears almost straight away, but resurfaces, used, perhaps definitively to name the initiative, in the first ‘Briefing Note’ (newsletter) in June 1998. View here By July 1998, it is firmly established as the name- in-use. View here