Almost one year in, KAOS (King’s Adolescent Outreach Service) at King’s College Hospital (KCH) has proved itself an exceedingly valuable project. Not only to hospital and staff, but importantly to the many adolescent patients admitted to adult inpatient wards, ensuring they received holistic and age appropriate care during their stay.
KOAS was launched in April 2018, a collaboration between KCH and Redthread Youth Limited charity, and supported by the Children & Young People’s Health Partnership (CYPHP). The project aims to contribute to CYPHP and KCH’s shared vision of improving everyday healthcare, by improving quality and age-appropriateness of care. For many of the patients, their care is improved by clinicians adopting the Teen Health Talk tool, which supports meaningful engagement.
Since launch, the team has achieved some noteworthy successes:
- between April and September, KAOS received 80 referrals from 30 different wards, representing 24 medical specialities;
- early figures show KAOS is relevant to many young people;
- 83% of referred adolescents engaged with KAOS,
- the team have successfully prevented 75% of patient self-discharge.
Support given by KAOS varies from providing a health review, offering education and employment advice, supporting medical treatment and advocacy, enquiring about mental health needs, and referring or signposting to services such as mental health, the Well Centre, sexual health, safeguarding, and substance misuse.
CYPHP was delighted to hear the project was shortlisted for the Lammy 2018 awards. The Lammy’s are an award ceremony hosted by Lambeth CCG, recognising people or teams who have gone the extra mile to provide exceptional healthcare support and services.
If you would like to learn more about KAOS or receive the latest updates, follow the KAOS team on Twitter: @KAOS_Kings
To see more of the latest news from CYPHP, please click here.