Enter and view: Kings College NHS Foundation Trust- Paediatric Ward

Healthwatch Lambeth carried out an Enter and View visit to King’s College NHS Foundation Trust paediatric services, including the Children’s Outpatient Department, Paediatric Short Stay Unit and Toni and Guy Ward. The review, led partly by trained sixth-form students, explored how youth-friendly these services were for children, young people and their families. Overall, feedback from patients and parents was highly positive, with families consistently describing the care as excellent, caring and well informed. Staff were widely praised for being approachable, supportive and attentive, and most patients felt they received clear explanations about their care and treatment. 

The strongest theme was that services had clearly been designed to be child-friendly but were less successful at meeting the needs of teenagers and older young people. Healthwatch observed that waiting areas, play facilities, décor and information displays were largely aimed at younger children. Young people reported using their phones for entertainment and suggested additional resources such as board games, magazines and better publicity about available Wi-Fi and facilities. Dedicated adolescent rooms existed but were described as underdeveloped, with Healthwatch recommending that young people themselves should help redesign these spaces to make them more welcoming, comfortable and relevant to teenage patients. 

The report also identified issues relating to information, communication and accessibility. Visitors found it difficult to navigate to the outpatient department because of poor signage, and some areas of the hospital environment required maintenance. Information displays were often cluttered, difficult to read and rarely targeted specifically at adolescents. Healthwatch recommended creating dedicated teen information areas and information packs covering topics such as confidentiality, consent, mental health, sexual health, Wi-Fi access, entertainment and ways to provide feedback. Families also raised concerns about appointment scheduling, occasional cancellation notices without clear explanations and difficulties with parking.

A small number of concerns were raised about staff interactions, particularly involving non-clinical staff, and one family shared an example of inappropriate comments made to a child with autism. Healthwatch therefore recommended strengthening visibility of care values and considering youth-specific training for support staff as well as clinical teams. The report also emphasised the importance of involving young people directly in service design and evaluation, improving communication about feedback mechanisms and adopting “You Said, We Did” approaches to demonstrate how patient feedback leads to change. Overall, Healthwatch concluded that care quality was highly regarded, but that further work was needed to make paediatric environments, information and support more genuinely youth-friendly for adolescent patients.