A 3-month-old baby is brought to the paediatric emergency department by their parents because of a fever. You decide to check their inflammatory markers. Their C-reactive protein (CRP) level comes back as 20 mg/L. Does this affect whether or not you start antibiotic therapy? Does it influence your decision to admit or discharge the patient? CRP is a commonly used biochemical test and yet its use is constantly debated and challenged. We look at the current evidence and suggest the best way to use this test in clinical practice.

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and time-keeping, and the amount of paperwork required. Many doctors observed little communication between the medical ward-round and the patients' specific nurse, with most information directed to senior nursing staff. There was an appreciation of the subsequent negative impact this had on the bedside nurse's understanding of their patient management. Despite not learning anything 'new', doctors felt they benefited from seeing a different perspective and feedback was generally positive. Conclusion Nurse shadowing days are a promising tool for improving interprofessional communication and relationships between doctors and nurses. Prospectively, the doctors had slightly different expectations of the day and assigned more value to acquiring knowledge rather than experiential learning, but post shift, showed increased insight of the nurse's role and the importance of good communication to improve patient care.

Introduction of ‘One Queue’ to our paediatric emergency department (PED)—changing to a single-stream triage destination in PED to improve patient flow, clinician experience and team cohesion.