Hospital passport video demo transcript

In this video, we're going to have a look at hospital passports and how they can help your child when they're attending outpatients appointments or being admitted for a hospital stay.

The hospital passport is a document designed to allow you to communicate to the staff, looking after your children, all about their likes, their dislikes, any sensory needs they have, and some of the ways to best communicate with your child while they're in the hospital. As I say, these can be used for outpatient appointments or hospital stays.

The idea is that you would complete the hospital passport yourself and have a hard copy with you when you're attending appointments. It's also possible to email the learning and disability autism team, part of the NHS Trust, who would then upload a copy of the hospital passport to your child's records. The responsibility for completing your hospital passport falls to the parent or carer. And it's also the parent or carer's responsibility to make sure that they are kept up to date and that the most up to date copy has been emailed to the team.

You can add any documents to list the things that you feel are important on a hospital passport. You might want to create your own word document or add a document from school that perhaps has an individual learning plan or a people passport or something of that nature.

However, there are some templates which you can use on the Leeds NHS website. If you look for the disability team here and then click on the the hospital passport.

Let's have a look at the template and consider some of the things that we might want to put on that. If we scan down, there are two versions of a hospital passport on here, we've got to Get Me Better blank hospital passport and a specific hospital passport for autistic people. As I say, it's entirely up to you which one you choose to use.

I think that the Get Me Better version is a slightly simpler version and perhaps more appropriate for younger children. I think we'll have a look at this one and talk this one through. So if I just click on here and I open that up, it should download for us. And then it opens as a word document that you can edit at home, save and email to the team or print out and have a hard copy with you when attending appointments.

We'll click enable at the top to sync up here. Okay. So the hospital passport or Get me Better hospital passport, let's have a look together at completing this. So in first section we have some basic information about the child. You can include any nicknames or preferred names they've got so the hospital staff know what the child likes to be called.

If we keep scanning down, we've got some basic information here. So you'd want to put in your child's address, telephone number and date of birth, their GP, and next of kin emergency contact in here. And then in here, add any details you want about their religion. Specifically anything that is particularly relevant about their religious beliefs in terms of their medical treatment or medical care. Any key workers involved with the child can also be added here, as well as information about whether or not they're in residential care.

The next section allows you to put the information about all the different professionals that are involved with your child's care. So you might want to list things like a pediatrician, health visitors, dietitians, occupational therapists, anybody who's involved with your child's care and has an understanding of their medical needs or their learning disability. You can go into as much detail as you want here.

If you think it would be relevant to this in the next section, you've got room to talk about any allergies that your child has. So that might be food allergies, allergic responses to medication and anything in their medical history that's concerned you in terms of allergies.

So if you're submitting a electronic copy to the team, you won't need to put anything into this section because obviously that would change depending on the day of the visit. If you bring in a hard copy with you, it may be useful to put a bit of information in here. For example, audiology test or follow up passed or something like that. It might also be useful to list if this is a follow up test, because your child wasn't able to complete the process the first time round or anything like that. Just to give staff a little bit more of an awareness of why they're in the hospital.

This next section talks about any behaviors that may be challenging or cause risk. So in here, you want to think about any challenging behaviors that your child demonstrates and anything that poses a risk to both themselves and to other people. You might want to include things like if your child is likely to run, climb on things or if they display any aggressive behaviors when they're upset or anything like that. Add anything in here that you think is worth staff knowing about to make sure that your child is safe and that the people around them are also kept safe.

Let's have a look at the next section and the next box, you have an opportunity to talk about the way in which your child likes to communicate. So in here you'd want to list anything that makes their communication a bit more difficult. So if they've got hearing loss or visual impairments, if they need to be wearing a hearing aid or if they have any speech and language issues preventing them from being verbal. So if they're verbal, you might want to talk about things like whether or not they use Makaton objects of reference, PAC systems, things like that in here, you could also talk about your child's ability to maintain eye contact. So anything about your child's communication and how they like to be communicated and spoken to in here.

In the next box, add details about the current medication that they're taking that is relevant to the particular appointment, but also more generally, and here's some specific information about how they like to take their medicine. So if it's always mixed with a particular drink or they like their tablets crushed up, things like that might be worth mentioning in here.

The next section allows you to talk about how your child goes to the toilet. So whether or not they're toilet trained, if they're able to use the toilet independently, if they need some assistance to use the toilet, to wash their hands afterwards or if they're still wearing nappies. It might be worth including in here, any sort of routines around going to the toilet. So there's a routine for changing nappies that your child relies on and is familiar with that makes it easier, it's worth putting things like that in here as well.

And again, with their personal care, so how able they can manage their own personal care, or are there elements of it that they need assistance with? I would consider putting down any sensory needs that affect how your child is with their personal care. So any particular instance of clothing they have an aversion to, or a particular order in which they need to put their clothes on and things like that. Really any personal care that is unique to your child and that you think it would be useful for members of staff in the hospital to know can go into that section.

The next section talks about pain. So in here, you want to think about whether or not your child has a high pain threshold. Perhaps due to some sensory processing difficulties, they don't experience pain or they might use a sign to express when they're in pain. Obviously that's quite an important thing for staff in the hospital to know that you want to think about that in that section there.

Let's look at the drinking and eating section now. So again, you want to think about any medical needs your child has, are they peg fed? Do they have any gastronomy aids? Is there any support that they need at meal times? You might want to think about specific cups that they like to use or utensils that they're familiar with. Also add any routines around meal times and a list of their favorite foods would be really useful. Conversely, any foods that they have a dislike to or any ways that they like their foods to be chopped up or anything like that.

So moving around, are they able to walk? Do they need supports or do they have aids such as walking aids or a wheelchair or anything like that, that they need to have with them at all the times.

The next section is particularly relevant if your child is in hospital overnight or for a sustained period of time. So you want to list anything here about their sleep pattern. So what time do they normally get ready for bed? Is there anything that they need? Any sleep associations they've got like a specific blanket, a special toy or lights that they would normally sleep with at home? Is there a bedtime routine that could possibly be followed in the hospital that would help them to settle? You might also want to list in here anything that happens during the night - when your child wakes are they relying on a bottle? Do they need a parent close by? Things like that, just to help your child if they're having an overnight stay in the hospital.

The likes and dislikes section, this is quite a personal thing and will be unique to each child. So you want to be thinking about things that your child likes and would make them feel more comfortable during their time in the hospital and things that they don't like as well as things that would make them feel less comfortable or dispersed. This might be based on their sensory needs. So for some children, it might be not touching their heads, or not coddling them, things like that. It might be that that's actually something they do like. So you want to think very much about your own unique child and talk about their likes and dislikes here. You could also include things like special interests. So dinosaurs, trains and other things that might help your child settle.

The consent and capacity section is more for your older young people and young adults as for younger children a parent will be making these medical decisions and you won't be filling out very much of this section here.

At the end, you've got an additional information section where you can put anything else that you think is important for staff to know while your child's in the hospital. You can also add your name, your relationship to the child and your contact details on the bottom, in case there are any questions.

So that was a brief run through of how to fill out the Get Me Better hospital passport. As I said, at the beginning, there's no set form for these so if you have another way of doing this, or you want to list to these things on a piece of paper, that's perfectly okay. They can still be used as hospital passports on your visit.

It's always worth having a hard copy of a hospital passport to take with you to outpatient appointments. You can also send a copy via email to the learning and disability autism team, and they can upload them and have that on your child's records. If you do do this, it's worth letting staff know that it's been done so they can access that prior to you coming into the hospital and have a few things in place and ready.

The hospital passports can be found on the Leeds Teaching Hospitals website. On this page you'll find a bit more information and the blank passport for you to fill in. You've also got the email address: leeds-tr.ldautism@nhs.net if you wish to submit an electronic copy to the team.

I hope that's been useful. If you have any questions about hospital passports or would like any more support and advice about attending medical appointments with your child, the family services team at Leeds Mencap would be more than happy to help. Thank you.