Children’s Home Ventilation Service

We provide a specialist regional service to children and their families covering a large geographical area – as far north as the Scottish Borders, south to the North Yorkshire across to the west coast.

Based at the Great North Children’s Hospital, we look after children from new-born through to 18 years old who require ventilatory support.

The majority of our patients that require assistance are managed with mask ventilation overnight however we also support children with tracheostomy who are dependent on ventilation 24 hours a day. 

Specialist care

We also support patients who have specific chest physiotherapy needs and children who require high flow nasal cannula oxygen. 

The range of patient conditions we manage include those with obstructive sleep apnoea, neuro muscular conditions, neuro disability, cardiac and complex airways.

The service supports the initiation of portable ventilation both in the patient’s home and in hospital.  We support patients on children’s wards and intensive care units at the Great North Children’s Hospital and Freeman Hospital and we offer regular follow up in multi-disciplinary clinics and home visits.

Multidisciplinary team

The team work closely with the paediatric sleep department and monitor our patients with both in-patient and home sleep studies as needed and home carbon dioxide and oxygen saturation monitoring. 

We also support children who are ready to trial of ventilation with specific weaning programs.

Transition from child to adult support

We work closely with the adult home ventilation team (NEAVS) and offer a transition clinic for young people (14-18 years).

The team

Medical

Dr O’Brien, Dr McKean, Dr Thomas, Dr Ebdon

Nurse specialists

Lee McKay, Michelle Sullivan

Specialist physiotherapists

Victoria Mitchinson, Sophia Ward

Physiologist

Joseph Plows

Admin support

Carol Reed

We also have input from specialist occupational therapists and speech and language therapists.