50,000th life-saving referral for super-specialist children's ambulance service

The Children’s Acute Transport Service (CATS), hosted by Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children (GOSH), is a one stop shop for immediate access to advice and life-saving treatment.

CATS transport patients by road, helicopter and plane, making them one of the most specialised children’s ambulance service in the UK. Each ambulance is a ‘mobile intensive care’, carrying all the necessary equipment to provide lifesaving interventions, including ventilators, an ultrasound machine and surgical equipment.

The team, who are made up of doctors, nurses, ambulance technicians and administrators, take the expertise of paediatric intensive care to a child’s bedside in their local hospital where this level of specialist care is not often available.

The 24/7 service provides local teams with advice on how to care for the patient. If the child’s condition gets worse, the CATS team then moves the child – by land or air – to a paediatric intensive care unit where they can continue to receive the life-saving intensive care they need.

Although based in London supporting the North Thames region, every year the team move 1,200 children and young people around the UK by land ambulance and helicopter. They even transfer international patients who require specialist care via air ambulances and commercial aircraft.

6-month-old Matilda Rose Stephanie Dunbar-Coppard, known as Tillie, was the CATS teams 50,000 referral.

A few days before Tillie was due, expectant parents Amy Dunbar and Jacob Edward Coppard went to their local hospital in Exeter after they stopped feeling Tillie move. A scan showed that she had a rare condition called Vein of Galen Malformation (VGM).

Affecting only 12-15 children in the UK a year, VGM is the development of abnormal connections between blood vessels in the brain during pregnancy. If left untreated the one-in-a-million condition is potentially life- threatening as the heart needs to work excessively hard to ensure the brain has a good blood supply.

Immediately after the scan Amie and Jacob were blue-lighted to University College London Hospitals where Amie had an emergency caesarean. As soon as Tillie was born, the CATS team were in the room preparing a specialist incubator for Tillie to be transported to GOSH, who are one of the only hospitals in the country who can treat this rare condition.

Jacob, who works for a civil engineering company, said: “The CATS team were amazing. They let Amie hold Tillie before she was moved to GOSH, and gave Tillie a little gift bag with a teddy. They even showed me how to change a nappy as I've never changed one before.

“They were reassuring, graceful and cautious during the transfer. I hadn’t shown any emotion until I got to GOSH. When I saw 10 clinicians waiting for Tillie I had a little cry. The CATS team member gave me a hug and told me it would be okay.”

ng well and is so calm.

“It’s fantastic to have been the teams 50,000 referral. We feel very special.”

The service, which has been running for 24 years, transports the highest number of seriously ill children in the UK. Mark Clement, Operational, Nursing and Advanced Practice Lead for the service, said:

“Reaching 50,000 referrals is a huge achievement for our service. It reflects collaborative input and support from so many nurses, doctors, ambulance technicians and administrators, which ensures our colleagues get immediate access to advice and treatment for ill and injured children presenting to their hospitals.

“Our team have launched more than 20,000 times, spanning the length and breadth of the UK and most continents of the world!

“We are so proud to be the forerunners in paediatric critical care transport. Our team have led on much of the research and innovation that has helped to shape the speciality worldwide.”

The CATS team are supported NHS specialist commissioning and have also received support from Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity (GOSH Charity).