\n Claire Drummond Hurst, who has a child with special educational needs (SEND), is one of several mums calling for better care for their children, joined by Dagenham and Rainham MP Margaret Mullane.\n<\/p>\n
\n She claims there are a lack of dedicated safe beds, which support children in the night, hoists to help them get in and \u201cproper\u201d changing rooms.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cOur goal is to make sure they are safe and can access just as any child or any person would,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe want this for all children.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Nic Kane, chief nurse at Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust (BHRUT), which oversees the hospital, previously apologised for families suffering \u201cpoor experiences\u201d and said \u201cwe know our children\u2019s A&E department is not always the best place to care for children with additional needs\u201d.\n<\/p>\n
\n Claire claimed that a lack of changing rooms meant that children up to 16 years old \u2013 many of whom are incontinent \u2013 are being changed on toilet floors or in the beds on the wards.\n<\/p>\n
\n She argues that safe beds are provided by Great Ormond Street Hospital, a world-leading children\u2019s hospital in central London.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIf some hospitals can provide them, why can\u2019t all?\u201d she told the Local Democracy Reporting Service.\n<\/p>\n
\n Claire also feels that there is little dedicated care for those aged between 16 and 18, who find themselves in \u201ca bit of a limbo\u201d.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cOur children are still really children so they can\u2019t go into adult wards,\u201d she said. \u201cYou just have to pray they don\u2019t get ill.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n She argues that parents would feel children are being better cared for if staff training was improved.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cSome staff can seem afraid of our children,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThat child could be dysregulated, having a meltdown, and they are a little louder than perhaps other children but that\u2019s just the way it is. You don\u2019t need to be frightened.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Mr Kane, BHRUT\u2019s chief nurse, said: \u201cWe know our children\u2019s A&E department is not always the best place to care for children with additional needs, and we\u2019re sorry some families have had a poor experience.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe will be meeting with Margaret Mullane MP and parents soon so we can discuss their concerns and how we can address them.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe\u2019ve worked closely with families where a child requires a specialist bed while in hospital, to ensure they are cared for safely.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe also work alongside our learning disability (LD) team so children who attend frequently have LD passports, which help ensure we can support their needs.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n BHRUT is also pushing for \u00a342million in government funding to totally rebuild the A&E department at Queen’s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Claire Drummond Hurst, who has a child with special educational needs (SEND), is one of several mums calling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":460507,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-703516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=703516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}