Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is very common and can cause disease ranging from mild upper respiratory tract infections to bronchiolitis, pneumonia or even death. In the UK, intensive care wards in the winter are extremely busy and 20,000 to 30,000 children are hospitalised with RSV each year. This is a disease that causes a huge burden in infants both in the UK and globally.

Dr Simon Drysdale, a consultant in paediatric infectious disease, joins our hosts Dr Emma Lim and Dr Chisto Tsilifis to discuss the maternal RSV vaccine, which has been rolled out across the UK, plus advances in research and other recently licensed vaccines.

RCPCH had a significant role in ensuring the RSV immunisation programme was introduced in the UK following publication of the JCVI's recommendation to develop one. In March 2024, we published an open letter signed by over 2,000 members urging the UK Government to implement a full RSV immunisation programme for both infants and adults across the UK. Our letter generated media coverage and UK parliamentary attention with MPs and Peers supporting our calls. As a result of our campaign, we welcomed announcements from all four UK governments confirming the rollout of new RSV programmes for infant protection from August 2024 in Scotland, and September for Northern Ireland, Wales and England.

Dr Simon Drysdale is Consultant Paediatric Infectious Diseases Specialist at Oxford Children’s Hospital and a Senior Lecturer in Vaccinology at the University of Oxford. 

This podcast is a collaboration between the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and Medisense.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this podcast relates only to the speaker and not necessarily to their employer, organisation, RCPCH or any other group or individual.

Subscribe to The Paeds Round for more educational episodes! And, you can find more RCPCH educational resources on RCPCH Learning. 

Want to hear more from RCPCH? Search for and subscribe to RCPCH Podcasts, our main channel.

The NHS has a large carbon footprint. So how can we as child health professionals help lower the environmental impact of delivering healthcare? Today’s guest on The Paeds Round, Dr Emily Parker, RCPCH Clinical Fellow and paediatric junior doctor in Newcastle speaks with host Dr Emma Lim on how we can all make a difference.

Emily and Emma discuss the surprisingly high carbon footprint of liquid medicines, how to optimise asthma care to reduce medication use and the benefits of dry powder inhalers over metered-dose inhalers. They also look at how to advocate for better air pollution management, which help prevent diseases like asthma.

Dr Emily Parker is RCPCH Clinical Fellow with the Clean Air Fund Partnership and a paediatric junior doctor at the Great North Children’s Hospital in Newcastle.

Download transcript (PDF)

This podcast is a collaboration between the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and Medisense.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this podcast relates only to the speaker and not necessarily to their employer, organisation, RCPCH or any other group or individual.

Subscribe to The paeds round for more educational episodes! And, you can find more RCPCH educational resources on RCPCH Learning. 

Want to hear more from RCPCH? Search for and subscribe to RCPCH Podcasts, our main channel.

Due to the success of vaccinations, measles in children had lain largely dormant in the UK over past decades. But cases have been rising. We address the key questions for paediatricians and healthcare workers. How serious is this disease? How infectious is it? And what do you do about it?

The paeds round is delighted to welcome back Dr Liz Whittaker who speaks with our regular host Dr Emma Lim. Liz and Emma discuss how you can tell if a child with a fever or rash has measles, and looking out for the 'three Cs'. And they explore the long-term implications of this disease.

Liz is a senior clinical lecturer in paediatric infectious diseases and immunology. She divides her time between Imperial College London and the Department of Paediatric Infectious Diseases and Immunology, St Marys Hospital, London where she is a consultant paediatrician.

Download transcript (PDF)

Links:

• Top Tips: Measles - bitesize learning on RCPCH Learning
• Think Measles - RCPCH poster with symptoms and advice
• Measles: an update - RCPCH webinar from February 2024 on RCPCH Learning
• Find your local health protection team

This podcast is a collaboration between the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and Medisense.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this podcast relates only to the speaker and not necessarily to their employer, organisation, RCPCH or any other group or individual.

Subscribe to The paeds round for more educational episodes! And, you can find more RCPCH educational resources on RCPCH Learning. 

Want to hear more from RCPCH? Search for and subscribe to RCPCH Podcasts, our main channel.

The Healthier Together programme provides clear and accurate health information for parents, young people and pregnant women. It's a website, but there's also an underlying ethos to ensure health professionals are consistent in what we communicate with families. 

Dr Sanjay Patel, paediatric infectious diseases and immunology consultant, joins hosts Dr Emma Lim and Dr Christo Tsilifis to discuss how Healthier Together can benefit families, especially from underserved communities. Plus top tips on how you can get the most out of the programe. 

Healthier Together: https://www.what0-18.nhs.uk

Download full transcript (PDF)

This podcast is a collaboration between the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and Medisense.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this podcast relates only to the speaker and not necessarily to their employer, organisation, RCPCH or any other group or individual.

Subscribe to The paeds round for more educational episodes! And, you can find more RCPCH educational resources on RCPCH Learning. 

Want to hear more from RCPCH? Search for and subscribe to RCPCH Podcasts, our main channel.

How can child health professionals use social media in a professional capacity - including for public health information and for learning? What are its benefits and what are its perils? And how can you protect yourself as a clinician?

This month on The Paeds Round, Dr Emma Lim and Dr Christo Tsilifis are joined by our multi-talented podcast producer and dermatology registrar, Dr Jonny Guckian, who runs the medical education site, MediSense, and has held numerous social media-facing roles. Jonny, Emma and Christo discuss the good and the bad of social media and offer practical guidance on how you can make the most of these platforms.

Download transcript (PDF)

Links mentioned in the episode:

• General Medical Council ethical hub – social media guidance
• Bloom’s taxonomy of learning (Wikipedia)
• Kidzmed eLearning programme

This podcast is a collaboration between the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and Medisense.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this podcast relates only to the speaker and not necessarily to their employer, organisation, RCPCH or any other group or individual.

Subscribe to The paeds round for more educational episodes! And, you can find more RCPCH educational resources on RCPCH Learning. 

Want to hear more from RCPCH? Search for and subscribe to RCPCH Podcasts, our main channel.

What exactly is group A Streptococcus and what are its carriage rates? How do we pick apart those paediatric patients with viral illnesses from those with strep throat? 

Emma and Christo are joined by Dr Liz Whittaker, a paediatric infectious diseases consultant in London, an academic at Imperial College and convener of the British Paediatric Allergy, Immunity and Infection Group (BPAIIG) to discuss this bacteria. They discuss whether or not to use antibiotics, understanding rashes and much more.

With your hosts, Dr Emma Lim and Dr Christo Tsilifis.

Download transcript: https://www.rcpch.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2024-03/The-paeds-round-5-transcript.pdf 

This podcast is a collaboration between the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (www.rcpch.ac.uk) and Medisense (www.medisense.org.uk).

Subscribe to The Paeds Round for more educational episodes! And, you can find more RCPCH educational resources on RCPCH Learning (https://learning.rcpch.ac.uk). 

Want to hear more from RCPCH? Search for and subscribe to RCPCH Podcasts for discussions on a wide range of child health topics - from health inequalities to climate change, from paediatric training to quality improvement.

It’s January and all the children are back in school. And that means it’s a chance to swap viruses and herald in the new year with fevers!

This month’s episode has the answers to your questions as child health professionals on this burning problem. Should you worry about the height of the fever? Should you give antipyretics? How do you reassure parents and carers that fevers are part of everyday life?

All of these issues are discussed, along with a passionate plea to make hand washing great again. So don’t get hot under the collar, listen to The Paeds Round as we take time out to chat to special guest, Dr Alasdair Munro, senior clinical research fellow in paediatric infectious diseases at the University of Southampton (https://alasdairmunro.substack.com/about and https://twitter.com/apsmunro).

With your hosts, Dr Emma Lim and Dr Christo Tsilifis.

Download transcript (PDF)

This podcast is a collaboration between the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (https://www.rcpch.ac.uk) and Medisense (https://www.medisense.org.uk).

Subscribe to The Paeds Round for more educational episodes! And, you can find more RCPCH educational resources on RCPCH Learning (https://learning.rcpch.ac.uk). 

Want to hear more from RCPCH? Search for and subscribe to RCPCH Podcasts for discussionsonawide range of child health topics - from health inequalities to climate change, from paediatric training to quality improvement.

We’re back for episode 3 of The Paeds Round with special guest Dr Katy Fidler joining our hosts Emma Lim and Christo Tsilifis to talk about the management of herpes simplex virus. We discuss stigma, when to worry about HSV, the importance of early detection and what to look out for.

Katy is a Paediatric Infectious Diseases Consultant in Brighton and a Reader in Paediatrics at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. She also currently runs the national study on neonatal herpes through the British Paediatric Surveillance Unit.

This is the final episode in our three-part mini-series on HSV. We’ll return in the new year to discuss fever.

Download transcript: https://www.rcpch.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2023-12/The-paeds-round-transcript-HSV-management.pdf 

This podcast is a collaboration between the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (https://www.rcpch.ac.uk) and Medisense (https://www.medisense.org.uk).

Subscribe to The paeds round for more educational episodes! And, you can find more RCPCH educational resources on RCPCH Learning (https://learning.rcpch.ac.uk). 

Want to hear more from RCPCH? Search for and subscribe to RCPCH Podcasts, our main channel.

We’re back for episode 2 of The Paeds Round with special guest Dr Hermione Lyall joining our hosts Emma Lim and Christo Tsilifis to talk about maternal to child transmission of herpes simplex virus and the importance of early detection of this rare condition.

Hermione is a paediatric infectious diseases consultant at St Mary’s hospital in London and brings a wealth of experience to this discussion. She has a special interest in congenital infections and has worked tirelessly to prevent their transmission, which she discusses at length in this second of our three-part series on HSV.

Listen out for the third part of this series on 19 December.

Download transcript: https://www.rcpch.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2023-12/Transcript-The-paeds-round-2-neonatal-HSV-transmission.pdf 

This podcast is a collaboration between the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (https://www.rcpch.ac.uk) and Medisense (https://www.medisense.org.uk).

Subscribe to The paeds round for more educational episodes! And, you can find more RCPCH educational resources on RCPCH Learning (https://learning.rcpch.ac.uk). 

Want to hear more from RCPCH? Search for and subscribe to RCPCH Podcasts, our main channel.

Resources relating to this episode

• The British Association of Sexual Health and HIV (BASSH) is updating its clinical guideline, Management of Anogenital Herpes in Pregnancy and the Neonate. The advice for prophylaxis in pregnancy has been updated to: “Start aciclovir from 32 weeks generally or 22 weeks in any woman where there is a suspected risk of prematurity”. 
• Video: Dr Hermione Lyall | PaeCH Teaching for Trainees - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XE1gjt_Vq0 
• Samies NL, James SH, Kimberlin DW. Neonatal Herpes Simplex Virus Disease: Updates and Continued Challenges. Clin Perinatol. 2021 Jun;48(2):263-274. doi: 10.1016/j.clp.2021.03.003. PMID: 34030813.
• Melvin AJ, Mohan KM, Vora SB, Selke S, Sullivan E, Wald A. Neonatal Herpes Simplex Virus Infection: Epidemiology and Outcomes in the Modern Era. J Pediatric Infect Dis Soc. 2022 Mar 24;11(3):94-101. doi: 10.1093/jpids/piab105. PMID: 34894240; PMCID: PMC8946680.
• Waheed S, Nuttall L, Fidler K, Dudley J, Bamford A, Lyall H. Neonatal Herpes Simplex Virus: Cutaneous Recurrence Is Common on Stopping Prophylactic Suppression Therapy. J Pediatric Infect Dis Soc. 2022 Dec 5;11(11):518-521. doi: 10.1093/jpids/piac098. PMID: 36048737.

Though common and self-limiting in older children and adults, herpes simplex viral infection can cause a spectrum of neonatal disease from simple lesion to devastating encephalitis. How can we identify babies at risk and provide appropriate treatment?

In this episode, Sarah discusses her devastating story of losing a child to neonatal HSV and her work in raising awareness of neonatal HSV.

Featuring Emma Lim and Christo Tsilifis with Sarah de Malplaquet, parent of Kit, and founder of the Kit Tarka Foundation. 

See transcript at https://www.rcpch.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2023-10/The-paeds-round-HSV-infection-transcript.pdf

This podcast is a collaboration between the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (https://www.rcpch.ac.uk) and Medisense (https://www.medisense.org.uk).

Subscribe to The paeds round for more educational episodes! And, you can find more RCPCH educational resources on RCPCH Learning (https://learning.rcpch.ac.uk). 

Want to hear more from RCPCH? Search for and subscribe to RCPCH Podcasts, our main channel.