Evaluation of fast track admission policy for children with sickle cell crises: questionnaire survey of parents' preferences: Fig 1

In Britain most people with painful sickle cell crises are admitted to hospital through an accident and emergency department. Interviews with patients have shown that this is unsatisfactory because the staff are often inexperienced in dealing with pain from sickle cell crises.1 Patients want immediate and effective pain relief and not to be asked irrelevant questions.2 An audit in our department in early 1994 showed that many children with painful sickle cell crises waited over an hour to receive analgesia. In October 1994 we therefore set up a fast track system whereby children with severe pain from sickle cell crises are admitted directly to the ward after a telephone call from a parent. All 112 children with sickle cell disease have preprescribed doses of pethidine and naloxone written on a prescription chart that is kept on …