Families worried their concerns about patients' deteriorating health are not being heard by hospital staff will be given a voice to escalate their concerns to an advocate.
The Victorian government on Sunday launched the Urgent Care Helpline service to ensure families can be heard if they believe a deteriorating patient is not being adequately attended to.
The hotline will be rolled out in certain health districts, starting with Northern Health in September.
A coronial inquest into the death of eight-year-old Amrita Lanka began this week after she died from myocarditis - inflammation of the heart muscle - at Monash Children's Hospital on April 30, 2022.
Amrita presented at the emergency department at Monash Children's Hospital with stomach pain and a fever, but as her condition deteriorated, her parents said their pleas for help to hospital staff went unanswered.
The girl died 21 hours later after going into cardiac arrest.
In August, a coroner ruled the death of 19-month-old Noah Souvatzis in 2021 was preventable after he was wrongly discharged from a regional Victorian hospital severely ill before dying of meningitis despite his parents' concerns that he was in a worse condition than when he was admitted.
The new escalation system, operated by the Victorian Virtual Emergency Department, will allow families to report their concerns about a patient’s deteriorating condition or if they feel their concerns are not being heard.
It is in response to feedback from families who have lost their children and will provide an additional point of contact for support when local responses have been exhausted.
The government promised to learn from every sentinel event to ensure these preventable deaths would never occur again, Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas said.
“We’re making significant changes to the way our health services respond to patient deterioration because we know this has historically, and unacceptably, been a significant factor in paediatric sentinel events," she said.
“The new Urgent Concern Helpline will support families and patients and ensure they have somewhere to turn if they feel their concerns aren’t being heard.”
The helpline is one recommendation from the See Me, Hear Me Report that identified actions required to improve the care children receive.
Western Australia rolled out the Aishwarya's Care Call system in 2021 allowing people to escalate their concerns when they are worried the person they are caring for is becoming sicker while in hospital.
Seven-year-old Aishwarya Aswath died of sepsis on Easter Saturday 2021, hours after presenting to the Perth Children's Hospital emergency department with a fever and unusually cold hands.
An inquest was told she was left in a waiting room for more than 90 minutes, despite her parents pleading with clinicians to escalate care.
Queensland similarly has Ryan's Rule escalation system after the death of two-year-old Ryan Saunders in 2007 from toxic shock syndrome.
An inquest was told doctors at Rockhampton Base Hospital failed to scan him to discover what was causing him excruciating stomach pains.
