Children's Acute Transport Service (CATS)

Children's Acute Transport Service (CATS) is a paediatric critical care transport team – we transfer critically ill or injured children from one hospital to another while providing intensive care during the journey.

We are one of the first stand-alone paediatric critical care transport services in Europe. Since our foundation in 2001, the CATS team have received over 50,000 referrals and each year we move around 1000 critically ill children by road and air.

We have at least two paediatric critical care transport teams available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The teams are made up of doctors, advanced nurse practitioners, specialist transport nurses, and ambulance technicians from St John’s Ambulance.

CATS serves hospitals in North Thames and Hertfordshire, transporting children to the paediatric critical care units at:

• St Mary’s Hospital
• Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH)
• Royal London Hospital
• Evelina London Children’s Hospital. 

CATS is hosted by and based at GOSH. We also have strong links with University College London (UCL) and Imperial and recruit for major PCC RCTs including OxyPICU, PRESSURE, and PIVOTAL.

Operational, Advanced Practice and Nursing Lead

Mark Clement

Email: mark.clement@gosh.nhs.uk

Consultant and Speciality Lead

Dr Andrew Jones

Email: andrew.jones@gosh.nhs.uk

As well as transporting critically ill children, CATS provides expert advice and educational support in varying formats:

• The annual CATS Forum.
• In person and virtual outreach teaching and simulation to all local hospitals in the network.
• CAST – a simulation-based course teaching resuscitation skills.
• Supporting the North Thames Paediatric Network (NTPN) in provision of level 2 education.
• A dedicated module on PCCT as part of the UCL Institute of Child Health (ICH) master’s degree in Advanced Paediatrics.
• Online content including instructional videos and guidelines.

Practice Educator

Anna Erdunast

Email: anna.erdunast@gosh.nhs.uk

Find out more about CATS NHS.

Hotline: 0800 0850 003

Enquiry Line: 020 743 05850

Email: queries@cats.nhs.uk

Address: Children’s Acute Transport Service (CATS), Ormond House, 26-27 Boswell Street, London, WC1N 3JZ.

Find out more about travelling to GOSH with the Non-Emergency Patient Transport Service (NEPTS).