In hospital, children may feel small, scared, worried or overwhelmed. The way health professionals engage with them makes a massive difference.
We worked with children and young people to create the ‘Children Coming to Hospital’ resource which includes a short animation for health professionals with practical advice about how to communicate with children coming to hospital.
Children told us they can struggle to join in the conversations with health professionals, as people often use words which are strange and unfamiliar to them. Children want to know that it is okay to ask questions to find out what is going on. They told us that it can help to have choices about what happens to them. Simple things like choosing which music to listen to or who sits with them while they have something done can make a huge difference to their experience.
The Children Coming to Hospital resource includes information for children, parents and health professionals. It aims to help everyone work together to make a child’s hospital experience as good as possible.
