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Welcome to the ESPNIC - PNAE Survey on Paediatric Early Warning Systems

Introduction
Early recognition of clinical deterioration, followed by prompt and effective action, can minimise the occurrence of adverse events such as cardiac arrests, unplanned transfers to High Dependency Units or Pediatric Intensive Care Units and may mean that a lower level of intervention is required to stabilise a patient. Recognition and response systems are systems put in place to support staff to promptly and reliably recognise patients who are clinically deteriorating, and to respond appropriately to stabilise the patient.

We have little information about the recognition and response systems that hospitals have in place in Europe.

Purpose of the survey
This survey is being conducted by ESPNIC (Resuscitation and Nursing Sections) and PNAE (Pediatric Nursing Association Europe). The purpose is to obtain information about the recognition and response systems in place in both public and private hospitals across Europe.

The survey collects information about:
**systems for recognising deterioration such as the existence of policies about taking observations (vital signs) or the use of early warning scoring systems
**systems for responding to deterioration, such as the use of intensive care liaison nurses or medical emergency teams to provide emergency assistance
**organisational systems to support the recognition of and response to deterioration, including provision of education and audit processes.

Use of data collected in the survey
Data collected as part of this survey will be held by ESPNIC. In a future publication no information will be published about individual hospitals and no hospitals will be identified. Your contribution will be acknowledged in any future publication. By responding to this survey you agree to the use of this data as described above.

How to fill in this survey
One survey should be completed for each hospital. This may include one physical site, or a multi-campus hospital where the systems are the same across campuses. Where recognition and response systems are different across campuses, separate surveys should be completed for each campus.

This survey should be completed by a person or team of people who are familiar with the recognition and response systems in place within the hospital. People who may need to be involved in this process could include hospital managers, directors of clinical governance, directors of nursing, directors of medical services, directors of intensive care and resuscitation committee members.

The survey can be commenced and saved before being completed at a later date. The survey should take around 20 minutes to complete.

We acknowledge the assistance of the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care who kindly allowed this survey to be adapted for use in Europe.