On Thursday, 29 August, teen cardiac patients from the Royal Hospital for Children, Glasgow visited the Golden Jubilee and started their transition process from the national paediatric to adult service.
The Royal Hospital for Children, Glasgow, is home of the national Scottish Neonatal Paediatric Cardiac Service. The service treats babies through to teenage years and aims to ensure age-appropriate care is delivered successfully.
The RHC is an incredibly familiar place for these patients due to the nature of cardiac treatment. This can vary from multiple visits throughout childhood and long-term stays, to ongoing outpatient appointments.
And, while the building and service become familiar over the years, the staff become like family.
The transition to the adult service is therefore one to be navigated with sensitivity and support.
Each year, the RHC and the Golden Jubilee host a Cardiac Transition Event to start this journey.
Patients in this paediatric cardiac service who turned 15-16 are invited to visit the adult hospital and begin relationships with the people who will manage their care in future.
The event includes tours, questions and answer sessions, meeting with clinicians, information and advice on navigating adult life with a heart condition and importantly – fun!
Claire Cairney, Cardiac Nurse Specialist at the Royal Hospital for Children, Glasgow explained:
“This event is about informing and about celebrating. The children and families create bonds of trust with our staff and moving on for them is a huge deal.
“This event allows them to start becoming familiar with fresh faces and, for the patient, celebrating that move of stepping into adulthood.
“We thank the staff at the Golden Jubilee for being such great partners in delivering this for our patients.”
One Scottish Paediatric Cardiac Service patient, Adam McLardie (17), who started this journey last year and attended the event in 2023, explained how valuable it was for him and his family.
“Moving to a new service is going to take a bit of time to get used to because I have been at the RHC for so long. I have had the same doctors for so long. The staff have become part of my close circle of people because I see and speak to them that often. You get so close that you know them and moving on means having to go through all that again,” he said.
Adam’s mum, Aileen McLardie, explained why the process is also important for parents.
“Now that Adam is going to be in adult services, it is not really me the teams will be speaking to, it will be him, so I want to make sure he is able to communicate what he is really feeling.
“The Cardiac Transition Event was good because we got to have a tour which helped as it is such a large hospital. It was also great to meet the team based at the Jubilee too. They have been in touch since, talking through what to expect and asking Adam questions to make him aware of his condition, his treatment plan, and what will happen within adult services, that has been good,” she said.
Adam also had some words for anyone approaching their cardiac transition.
“I think the best way to describe the transition is like when you are moving from primary school to secondary school; like when you go from having one teacher and then you go having loads of extra people to deal with, it is a similar feeling to that. It is a nervous but exciting feeling,” he said.
Good luck to all our young patients transitioning to adult services in the coming months.
