Paediatric General Surgery and Urology

The GIRFT specialty review comprised deep dive visits to all of the 22 specialist trusts and the 67 highest-volume non-specialist trusts – 89 in total – and involved frontline clinicians, nurses, finance staff and managers. The clinicians included surgeons, anaesthetists, neonatologists, intensivists, paediatricians and radiologists.

Recommendations and actions in the GIRFT national report aim to improve the outcomes and experience of children who need surgery by modifying the existing model of care in England to ensure surgical expertise is concentrated in the right place for the right patients. The report also looks at how care offered in hospitals for common conditions such as appendicitis can be improved.

Summary Paediatric Indicator Table (SPaedIT)

In June 2023, GIRFT and NHS England’s Children and Young People (CYP) launched a new data tool to support healthcare providers with elective recovery of CYP services. This has now been updated, and version 2 is in operation

The Summary Paediatric Indicator Table (SPaedIT) brings together provider-level data summarising demand, capacity, flow and outcomes, all in one place in an easily-accessible dashboard. Refreshed monthly, the data is available across eight key paediatric surgical specialties and more than 40 metrics. Learn more.

Professor Simon Kenny OBE

Paediatric general surgery and urology clinical lead

National Clinical Director for children and young people with NHS England and a consultant paediatric surgeon at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital

Simon is NHS England’s National Clinical Director for children and young people. He has been a consultant paediatric surgeon at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool since 2003. His clinical interests include neonatal surgery, laparoscopy, lower GI surgery and paediatric urology while his research interests include long-term outcomes in paediatric surgery and regenerative medicine.

From 2009 to 2016, Simon served as clinical director of the surgery, critical care, anaesthesia and cardiac clinical business unit, playing a significant role in redesigning services and moving in to the new award-winning Alder Hey in the Park in 2015.

He is an honorary senior lecturer in child health at the University of Liverpool, and was awarded Honorary Fellowship of the American Academy of Paediatrics in 2004.

In December 2023, he was made an OBE for services to paediatric surgery in the New Year Honours.

Dr Ronny Cheung

General paediatrics clinical advisor

Consultant paediatrician and co-clinical lead for general paediatrics at Evelina London Children’s Hospital

Ronny is a consultant paediatrician and co-clinical lead for general paediatrics at Evelina London Children’s Hospital.

In addition to his clinical work, he holds roles related to his twin passions: clinical service design, innovation and improvement; and healthcare policy.

He serves as Deputy Chief Medical Officer (Improvement) at Guy’s & St Thomas’s NHS Trust, and clinical lead for their Centre for Innovation, Transformation & Improvement. He is the RCPCH’s Officer for Health Services, a Visiting Fellow at the Nuffield Trust health thinktank, and Chair of NICE’s Indicators Advisory Committee.

Ronny has worked previously as a clinical advisor to Public Health England’s child and maternal health intelligence network, on secondment to the English Chief Medical Officer at the Department of Health, and as a health advisor for the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit in the Cabinet Office.

Recommendations in GIRFT paediatric surgery report aim to create a world-leading network

Children and babies who need operations for the rarest and most complex conditions would benefit if surgery was delivered in fewer centres of expertise, according to the Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) national report for paediatric general surgery and urology.

Author Professor Simon Kenny, GIRFT’s clinical lead for paediatric surgery and the National Clinical Director for Children and Young People with NHS England and NHS Improvement, recommends modifying the existing model of paediatric care in England to ensure surgical expertise is better concentrated in the right place for the right patients.