Rachel Stephen-Smith says there will be ICU beds for children in Canberra Hospital expansion

Rachel Stephen-Smith said authorities wanted to make sure clinicians could work across both paediatrics and the intensive care unit so children weren't unnecessarily sent between the wards.

"What we need to do is ensure that we have people cross-skilled between both the ICU and the paediatrics team so that we don't end up in a circumstance where children get escalated to the ICU unnecessarily where they could receive that care in the paediatrics," she said.

A 2021 review into paediatrics at Canberra Health Services found staff felt there were "unnecessary risks for unwell children" and the territory needed a level one paediatric intensive care unit.

A level one intensive care unit is able to provide immediate resuscitation, ventilation and cardiovascular monitoring for under 24 hours and monitoring of "at risk" medical and surgical patients.

The government will include four paediatric beds in its new critical services building at Canberra Hospital, which is set to be completed next year.

But Ms Stephen-Smith said not everybody in the clinical team supported the recommendations of the 2021 review.

"We've had a number of conversations ... [including] with clinicians at Canberra Hospital there is a risk when you establish an intensive care unit that you then de-skill your paediatric high-care teams," she said.

"And this has been seen in other jurisdictions."

The ACT government appointed an independent panel to review the recommendations from the 2021 review. This panel was led by Professor Michael Brydon, who was the former chief executive of the Sydney Children's Hospitals Network.

Ms Stephen-Smith said the group discussed the challenges around developing an intensive care unit for children.

"We will be following the advice of the expert panel," Ms Stephen-Smith said.

"That's why we asked the expert panel to do the work, to look really closely at how we deliver the best care for the sickest children in the hospital."

Ms Stephen-Smith was asked about the intensive care unit beds in question time on Wednesday.

MORE HEALTH NEWS:

Witnesses to an ongoing coronial inquest into the 2022 death of a five-year-old at Canberra Hospital have suggested the territory's ICU staff could not treat children.

Paediatrician Dr Callum Jarvis said he thought ICU doctors did not assess Rozalia Spadafora when he asked them to because they were not used to having child patients.

Senior paediatrician Dr Anne Mitchell also told the inquest it was "challenging" getting ICU doctors to review sick children.

"Children aren't just little adults so you do require someone who's trained [in paediatrics]," she said.

"It can be challenging when you have a sick child to look after them in Canberra."

Dr Mitchell said medical staff were not specialist enough to properly care for Rozalia and she needed to be in a Sydney tertiary hospital.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: