Health play specialist Tracey Martin has been selected as the winner in Starlight’s first Innovation Awards for pioneering work tackling hospital-based anxiety in children and the hospital's young people and children’s diabetes service is one of our three runners-up for its work supporting under 7s with diabetes and their families.
Tracey Martin was selected for designing and creating a VIP PASS (Very Important Plan Procedural Anxiety Support Scheme) for children and young people with severe and complex procedural anxiety to help staff understand that they may need adjustments to help them cooperate with treatments such as blood tests and injections.
She had been writing personalised plans for anxious young patients which parents or carers could show to staff with varying levels of success, so she came up with the idea of a ‘pass’ which was rolled out last year.
The pass can be worn on a lanyard (see patient Imogen pictured below) and has a QR code which can be scanned by health staff. It gives them instant information about how the personalised plans work so when they read the paper copy they will understand more about why it is so important to make the individual child more comfortable during procedures. This is supported by play-based sessions to help young patients work through their fears and create their individual procedural plan.
The pass, which was funded by the hospital charity, is also linked to an alert system on patient records which ensures every health professional knows if their patient has a personalised plan which needs to be read before starting treatment.
