Alder Hey Children’s Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Alder Hey Children’s Hospital is a major national children’s hospital in the UK and teaching hospital affiliated to Liverpool’s School of Medicine. It serves not only the local children of Liverpool, but is the tertiary referral centre for children from Merseyside, Cheshire, parts of Lancashire, Shropshire and North Wales for many sub-specialties of paediatrics.
The Trust provides a range of community services including school nursing, home care, and a child development centre. A child and adolescent mental health service is also provided at the Trust and in the surrounding community.
The hospital provides care to approximately 450,000 children per year within a new state of the art hospital that opened in 2015. Alongside facilities for in-patient care, the Trust provides day beds for surgery and a medical day care unit, and has recently opened a paediatric Clinical Research Facility.
In March 2016 we opened our Institute in the Park, also known as the Speakman Building – our dedicated research, innovation and education centre located next door to our hospital.
Within this building, academic researchers, healthcare professionals, technology companies, commercial research teams, students and educators can collaborate freely in one shared space.
The Institute also provides the perfect location for our teaching and training sessions, enabling us to improve the skills and knowledge of healthcare professionals. It is home to our Alder Hey Academy and education teams who offer training, education and continuing professional development to our staff, along with the next generation of health specialists.
The Alder Centre, the UK’s only dedicated bereavement centre for child loss, in September 2021. And the Catkin Centre, our new community, mental health, and outpatient facility, was opened in October 2022. Sunflower House, our 12-bedroom inpatient mental health facility, was opened in May 2023, replacing the old Dewi Jones Unit in Waterloo.
Work is also underway on building our new Surgical Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), in partnership with Liverpool Women’s Hospital.
Together, these innovative and forward-thinking facilities will be part of our evolving Children’s Health Campus, located next to Springfield Park. The Campus will be an innovative, vibrant, and safe place focused on developing the very best health outcomes for children and young people and will show Alder Hey as a leader in children’s healthcare.
In addition to our Children’s Health Campus, we offer paediatric services at a number of community sites and hold local clinics across Merseyside, Cumbria, Shropshire, Wales and the Isle of Man, ensuring we are able to provide the best care to our families in the heart of our communities.
We are becoming recognised as one of the world’s leaders in children’s healthcare and research. Alder Hey’s Clinical Research Facility (CRF) is one of 28 research facilities across the UK funded by the NIHR, and one of two exclusively for paediatric patients. The state-of-the-art child-centred facility provides the safest environment for early translational and experimental medicine research.
We continue to drive innovation in paediatric healthcare within our Innovation Hub. The Innovation Hub is a dedicated space where clinicians and industries can come together to create new products and technologies.
The paediatric specialist services and expertise within the hospital are considerable and include paediatric ophthalmology, cardiology, cardio-thoracic surgery, neonatal surgery, neurology, neurosurgery, audiology, nephrology, respiratory, rheumatology, gastroenterology, dermatology, endocrinology, metabolic medicine, haematology, oncology, palliative care, paediatric infectious diseases and immunology, allergy, clinical genetics, trauma, paediatric intensive care, paediatric radiology, paediatric pathology, general surgery, and general paediatrics all on a single site.
The radiology department provides an excellent supportive service, which includes both a CT and MRI scanning service.
Alder Hey Children’s Hospital - Welcome to The Land of Remarkable People
Placement opportunities
A range of undergraduate programmes are delivered to medical students at different stages of training.
Third year students are placed in 4 week attachments and gain initial paediatric training through lectures, bedside teaching and tutorials. By the end of placement it is expected students will:
- Be competent to take a full history for a range of common acute and long-term illnesses occurring in infancy and childhood and also screen appropriately for family, social and developmental problems.
- Be competent to undertake a complete physical examination of an infant or child including a screening developmental assessment.
- Be competent to determine a differential diagnosis and investigation plan appropriate to the presenting complaint of the child.
- Gain experience of core acute and long-term paediatric conditions.
- Students will have observed key clinical experiences: post take ward round, visit to a children’s centre/nursery, and following a patient and family through a day case visit.
- Students will be expected to complete core practical procedures: measurement of height and weight; measurement of blood pressure, temperature, head circumference, urinalysis.
Fourth year students are able to consolidate skills gained in year three with additional focus on management of acute and chronic paediatric conditions and paediatric prescribing skills.
Fourth year paediatric ENT students will experience clinics and theatres. It is rare to have a specific placement in paediatric ENT in UK medical schools. However, it is fundamental to General Practice and Paediatrics as so many children in both specialties present with ENT problems. There is opportunity to attend some paediatric audiology sessions and the majority to experience virtual ward rounds using innovative educational aids.
Final year students can be placed at Alder Hey for SAMP modules.
In addition, the Trust provides research and scholarship projects (RS2/RS3) to second- and third-year students to help understand the pivotal contribution of research and scholarship to medical practice and contribute to its advancement.
Clinical skills provision
Paediatric basic life support is taught in a dedicated clinical skills environment for third year students.
Student testimonials
Feedback gained from medical students
“Thoroughly enjoyed the placement, very well organised!”
“Very good teaching especially examinations.”
“Really great placement overall.”
“Neurology teaching was excellent. Abdominal CBL was also extremely useful. All staff have been extremely friendly, and I have felt comfortable to ask for help.”