Introducing outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy in a children's hospital.

Outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy (OPAT) offers an alternative to inpatient care for delivering intravenous antibiotics in patients' homes or in a day care clinic setting. It was first introduced in North America in the 1970s and has evolved over the years, starting with the adult population and now moving to the paediatric population ( Chapman 2013 ). OPAT has the potential to offer excellent, patient-centred, high-quality care to treat a wide variety of infectious conditions in patients who are medically stable and do not need hospitalisation. For children and young people OPAT has the potential for families to resume their normal lives: returning to work, school and home. Paediatric OPAT (P-OPAT) is being implemented across the UK, with five centres now established. This article reports on the implementation of P-OPAT at Sheffield Children's NHS Foundation Trust (Sheffield Children's) in June 2016, highlighting the challenges and successes. ©2018 RCN Publishing Company Ltd. All rights reserved. Not to be copied, transmitted or recorded in any way, in whole or part, without prior permission of the publishers.