Specialist care

Care is offered at either Rachel or Robin House, and through our CHAS at Home and CHAS into Hospital Teams. It’s usually planned, but often happens in emergency situations too – in response to a call from care professionals or families.

From birth up to 18 years old, we offer care for many life-shortening conditions. And, with close links to every neonatal and paediatric unit in Scotland, we aim to fully involve professionals from these units at all times.

Care at Rachel and Robin House

We offer a range of services, which include:

• Short planned breaks 
• Emergency care – often as a ‘step down’ from hospital
• End of life care
• Intermediary support – before a child or young person can be discharged home 

We also have medical, nursing and social work staff with specialist skills. They work within a wider multidisciplinary team, which includes:

• Family support team members
• Chaplains
• Physiotherapists 
• Music and play specialists 

Our clinical staff members offer specialist knowledge based on extended training and experience. Which means that care can be offered for those who have:

• Gastrostomies
• Jejunostomies
• Parenteral nutrition
• Non-invasive and invasive ventilation
• Renal dialysis
• Oral palliative chemotherapy 

CHAS at Home and in hospitals

Complex care is increasingly being offered at home, as well as in children’s hospitals – where we have two consultant paediatricians working jointly with the NHS. Care also comes from a team of Diana Children’s Nurses. Based within the NHS, they specialise in:

• Neonatal palliative care principally in NHS Lothian
• Paediatric critical care and oncology principally in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde
• Community liaison work across the North of Scotland, but principally in NHS Grampian and NHS Highland

Dedicated practitioners

Our full-time Medical Director and hospice specialists work on complex palliative situations in our hospices, the community and hospitals.

We have a lead paediatric pharmacist specialising in complex medication regimes for children with palliative needs using our services and working with colleagues in other pharmacies. And, we’re developing Advanced Nurse Practitioners and Non-Medical Prescribers to help in supporting roles too.

CHAS is also leading on the national development of Anticipatory Care Plans, which include children. And, we’re playing an important role in relaunching the national children’s resuscitation document – the ‘Children and Young People’s Acute Deterioration Management’ plan (known as the CYPADM form).