Barts And The London Children's Hospital Gets Animated To Help Children Prepare For Hospital Visits

Main Category: Pediatrics / Children's Health
Article Date: 30 Oct 2008 - 5:00 PST

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Barts and the London Children's Hospital has launched an innovative new website to help children and young people prepare for a visit to hospital.

A range of quirky characters guide children to documentary-style films and cartoons of children and teenagers talking about their real-life experiences as patients. To capture children's real thoughts, some of the children filmed their own video diary while in hospital.

The stories cover a range of topics, including what it's like to stay on a ward, how it feels to have an operation and what it's like to come to Accident and Emergency. Young people and children can hear Shah, age 8, explain why they shouldn't be scared of needles, watch Ron, age 10, talk about what it's like to have an x-ray, and see Ruby, age 14, during one of her regular check-ups to manage her cystic fibrosis.

"Jack loves it, and we're really pleased that he was part of this," says Sally Aitchison, mum of young patient Jack who was interviewed about Crohn's disease, a condition which affects the digestive system.

"It's fantastic to see such an informative, yet simple website for children that gives a good representation of what actually happens in hospital."

Dr Siobhan Carr, Paediatric Respiratory Consultant, Barts and The London Children's Hospital explains: "The website has been designed to capture young people's fascination with animation. We also hope that hearing and seeing our young patients talk about their experiences will reassure other children about visiting our hospital.

"The website is also a useful resource for parents, teachers and healthcare professionals, who can use the site to explain to younger children what it's really like at our hospital."

Barts and The London Children's Hospital consulted young patients throughout the development of the website, which was produced by east London consultancy Bold Creative with funding from Barts and The London Charity.

To celebrate the launch of the website, children who are featured on the website gave a personal tour of the site for some of the hospital's other young patients, staff, and representatives of local health organisations and schools. Former Eastenders actress, Emma Barton attended the event to present awards to the children who featured on the website.

Click here to visit the new website.

About Barts and The London Children's Hospital

With 130 acute beds for children, Barts and The London Children's Hospital is one of the leading children's hospitals in the country. Over the course of a year, we provided routine and specialist treatment to around 40,000 young patients between the ages of 0-16. We have London's biggest dedicated Accident and Emergency department for children, and treat some of the most seriously ill and injured children in London.

The children's hospital is based at The Royal London Hospital, part of Barts and The London NHS Trust. With some of the best clinical outcomes in the country, our mission is literally to bring excellence to life - to give patients the best possible care so that they can live better, fuller, longer lives. Read more about our full portfolio of services at www.bartsandthelondon.nhs.uk.

Our £1 billion new hospitals programme is set to transform healthcare facilities locally. When completed the new hospital at The Royal London (incorporating the children's hospital) will be the biggest new hospital in the country, while the new buildings at Barts will house a brand-new cancer and cardiac centre.

Barts and The London Children's Hospital