Our children’s gastroenterology and nutrition unit cares for children with disorders of the gut, liver and pancreas, as well as children with nutritional problems.
Based at the Great North Children’s Hospital, our team includes:
- expert consultants
- specialist dietitians
- paediatric pharmacists
- highly-trained paediatric nurses.
We provide a wide range of diagnostic and treatment services for children from across northern England.
We also work alongside the children’s bone marrow transplant team, to provide care for children who have rare immune gut disorders.
Specialist services
Our specialist services include diagnostic procedures and treatment in a range of areas.
Diagnostic procedures
We provide a full range of gastroenterology procedures including:
- upper and lower GI endoscopy (camera tests of the inside of the gullet, stomach and bowel)
- placement of PEG gastrostomies (a PEG tube passed into the stomach through the abdomen)
- pH studies (to monitor acid levels)
- oesophageal high resolution manometry (a tube passed through the nose into the throat)
- capsule enteroscopy (a capsule with a camera inside which is swallowed)
- sugar malabsorbtion hydrogen breath tests (testing the breath for hydrogen).
All endoscopies are carried out under general anaesthetic in the dedicated paediatric theatres.
Nutrition service
We provide specialist nutritional support for children with food allergies, poor oral food intake, or severe bowel problems which prevent sufficient nutrition being absorbed through the gut (intestinal failure).
The paediatric nutrition team supports children with:
- gastrostomies (tube through the abdominal wall into the stomach)
- jejunostomies (tube placed past the stomach into the first part of the intestine)
- intravenous nutrition in the hospital and at home.
Liver service
Our specialist liver service includes dedicated clinics, and full diagnostic testing including liver biopsy.
With colleagues in the children’s liver units in Leeds and Birmingham, we provide care for children after liver transplantation.
Food allergy and coeliac disease
We diagnose and treat children with disorders such as coeliac disease and food allergies.
For certain conditions, specialist teams like ours can sometimes diagnose coeliac disease without the need for an endoscopy or a biopsy.
Inflammatory bowel disease
We care for children and young people with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which includes Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.
Our service is one of the largest children’s IBD services in the UK.
We area also the only centre in the North of England to offer combined medical and surgical management for the conditions.
Patients can access our rapid access clinics and support over the telephone and by email.
We also have an SMS text message reminder system for blood monitoring. We work closely with colleagues in the adult IBD team providing combined clinics for the effective handover and on-going care for young people with IBD.
Working with children and their families
We work closely with parents and children, helping you to be involved and understand your child’s care.
We provide a 24/7 on-call service for children’s gastroenterology which is led by consultants.
This service helps our patients access the most expert care, including endoscopy, when they need it.
