Background A recent survey showed that in 2009/10 there were approximately 5,500 paediatric admissions in our region. 62% of these were children referred by GP and 70% were discharged within 4 hours without active clinical intervention. NHS Stoke-on-Trent, NHS North Staffordshire and Partners in Paediatrics (PiP) devised an innovative approach between primary and secondary care clinicians in line with Department of Health QIPP (Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention) programme.

Aims To improve the quality of referrals and reduce inappropriate referrals to admissions unit and outpatients by educating GPs and nurses to be more competent and confident in management of children.

Methods 10 Masterclasses were run by 8 paediatric consultants/PIP over a 6 week period in 2011. 125 GPs, 92 nurses (17 nurse practitioners, 28 Practice Nurses, 9 community nurses, 24 health visitors) and 29 others (triage, student nurses) attended these sessions. 8 topics including convulsions, gastro enteritis, respiratory infections and rashes covered the top ten non-elective admissions and outpatient referrals to hospital identified in survey.

Results Feedback showed that participants preferred small informal groups with an interactive format helpful for learning. 80% of 242 participants who completed evaluation forms found the Master-classes useful or extremely useful.

Conclusions Referral data for acute hospital admissions and outpatients for individual GPs before and after Masterclasses is currently being audited. A reduction of 5–10% in acute and outpatient referrals by GPs is expected by 2012.We aim to conduct paediatric masterclasses to include all primary care clinicians in the region.