NSW Severe Burn Injury Service

Chair: John Harvey
Deputy Chair: Diane Elfleet

NSW Severe Burn Injury Service comprises Severe Burn Units at; Royal North Shore Hospital, Concord Repatriation General Hospital and the Children's Hospital at Westmead. These are the tertiary referral units for all burns in NSW that meet the Transfer Criteria found in the Emergency Management and Transfer Guidelines for patient care developed http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/policies/gl/2008/GL2008_012.html

Burns are common injuries in the community. Whilst the majority of burn injuries heal with no or minimal medical intervention, a small proportion of burn victims sustain devastating and life-threatening injuries, requiring intensive and long-term treatment.

The nature and complexity of severe burn injury requires a collaborative approach to patient care. This is provided by a multi-disciplinary team with expertise in the management of severe burns in a Burn Unit with supporting services such as: critical care, surgery, reconstruction and rehabilitation.

In 2003, the NSW Severe Burn Injury Service was established. Additional recurrent funding of $1.5 million was provided by the GMTT. The Service contributes to the care of patients with a severe burn injury by:

Bringing together the expertise required to coordinate clinical services across the continuum of care - from initial hospital admission through to hospital discharge, rehabilitation and ongoing care.

• Sharing clinical expertise
• Implementing a standardised Model of Care across the three NSW Burn Units (Children's Hospital at Westmead, Concord Hospital and Royal North Shore Hospital)
• Developing standardised clinical practice guidelines for patient care
• Increasing the focus on prevention, improving links to community outreach services for patients and undertaking research to improve patient care

• Model of Care for people with severe burn injuries across three NSW Burn Units has been developed in consultation with other disciplines and consumer groups. http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/pubs/2004/burninjurymoc.html
• Emergency Management and Transfer Guidelines for patient care developed http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/policies/gl/2008/GL2008_012.html. This publication and the Standardised Model of Care are also available in hard copy via the NSW Severe Burn Injury Service.
• A Tissue Culture Laboratory situated at Concord Burns Unit, culturing skin to use in skin grafting procedures for patients at all three Burn Units and conducting tissue culture research.
• Integral involvement in writing the National Burn Disaster Plan, AUSBURNPLAN.
• Rural and metropolitan education by nursing, allied health and medical Burn Service staff to health care professionals.
• Formation of a Clinical Practice Review Committee to review deaths, adverse outcomes and trends from data and patient transfer issues. This committee has developed a two-way feedback form to be used for all transfer and medical retrieval patients to the Burn Service.
• Allied Health and Nursing Burns Clinical Practice Guidelines, available on our webpage.
• Formation of Prevention Committee with representation from burn clinicians, NSW Health Injury Prevention Policy Branch, NSW Fire Brigades, KidsSafe, Health Promotion Unit CHW and NSW Dept of Fair Trading.
• "LEARN TO STOP BURNS" Primary School Education resource. Computer based program to teach children and their families strategies for burn prevention and first aid treatment. http://www.chw.edu.au/parents/kidshealth/burns_prevention/ 
• Domestic Treadmill friction burns to children: Success in lobbying the NSW Office of Fair Trading to introduce legislation requiring treadmills to have warning labels and a public safety education campaign. See link to safety information on Resources page.
• Enhancements to Burns Ambulatory Care clinics at the three Severe Burn Units at Royal North Shore, Concord and Children's Hospital at Westmead
• Data collection on all patients treated as in and out patients for acute burn injuries in the three Burn Units that comprise the SBIS.