Taunton
General Information
Musgrove Park Hospital is a medium sized district general hospital based in beautiful Somerset serving a paediatric population of around 90,000. There is a diverse socioeconomic population from urban and rural settings.
The department consists of an acute paediatric unit, community paediatrics and a level 2 neonatal intensive care unit.
Acute admissions are seen in our new Paediatric Assessment Unit. We have 2 children’s wards: Acorn ward consisting of 9 individual cublicles mainly for short stay admissions and very young children; and Oak ward, a 23 bedded area for acute admissions and elective medical (including oncological) and surgical cases. There is a two bedded Paediatric HDU for patients requiring higher level care. This is supported by the regional PICU retrieval service (WATch). There is a separate nurse led area (Woodlands Unit) where patients requiring investigations are managed. Safeguarding is the responsibility of all and is a significant part of the acute paediatric service.
The level 2 Neonatal Intensive Care Unit cares for newborns from 27 week gestation with 4 intensive care, 4 high dependency and 10 low dependency cots. It is supported by the regional neonatal retrieval team (NEST). The maternity unit provides care for over 3200 deliveries per year.
There are separate general paediatric and neonatal oncall consultant rotas providing service weeks with excellent continuity and support for the patients and staff.
Community Paediatrics is based within the hospital. Speciality trainees are exposed to a broad spectrum of community child health including safeguarding and child health surveillance. There are speciality clinics in neurodevelopmental paediatrics, feeding, communication disorders and ADHD. There is a robust community paediatric nursing team to support complex patients in the home.
There is a specialist paediatric outpatient department with opportunities to develop experience in general paediatrics as well as specialist clinics including cystic fibrosis, allergy, diabetes, endocrinology, oncology, epilepsy, rheumatology, nephrology, cardiology, metabolic, immunology, surgery and urology.
Trainee support and postgraduate education
Trainee support and positive team culture are key values of our department.
We provide a weekly education program which is closely mapped to the RCPCH Progress curriculum. Sessions are well attended by the whole department and include: interesting cases discussion, simulation, journal club, safeguarding peer review and ST1-3 & ST4-8 focused sessions on general paediatrics, neonatal and community paediatric topics. Regular interdepartmental sessions take place with radiology, obstetrics, and the emergency department. Our monthly Paediatric Improvement Group sessions help foster innovation and quality improvement within and beyond our department.
We have a dedicated team of educational supervisors who provide regular & consistent high quality support to our trainees.
The hospital has a recently refurbished postgraduate academy which has a well -stocked forward thinking library with excellent IT facilities and access to a wide range of online supportive materials.
Trainees
ST4-8: 7 WTE
ST 1-3 – 4 WTE
GPVTS – 4 WTE
F2 – 1 WTE