Super Saturdays – how Sheffield Children’s is helping to improve children’s healthcare

This Saturday (12 November) Sheffield Children’s will be teaming up for Super Saturday – a nationwide partnership to help children and young people access the care and support they need and reduce delays.

During the day Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust will be working alongside other children’s hospitals across the country to offer additional clinics, extra surgery and to provide families health advice out in the community. The latter will support practices like healthy eating and good dental care – heading off potential future health issues.

Super Saturdays were created in response to the challenges created by the COVID pandemic, including increased waiting lists. 75 surgical procedures and more than 400 outpatient appointments are planned through this Super Saturday.

During the day, Sheffield Children’s will be carrying out extra spinal surgery and eye procedures, focusing on patients who have been waiting the longest and holding extra clinics for rheumatology patients and the chronic lung condition bronchiectasis.

Craig Radford, Chief Operating Officer at Sheffield Children’s said: “Through Super Saturdays we’ve been able to see hundreds more children, with extra appointments and surgeries taking place across the country.

“As well as reducing waiting lists, Super Saturdays allows us to deliver care in a slightly different way to normal. For example we’ve been able to offer special sensory clinics for children with autism and other sensory issues, taking advantage of the fact clinical spaces are quieter than they are during the week.

“It has been so exciting seeing the ideas across the country, and where things are successful, we can adopt them more widely – across the alliance, we’re sharing ideas that benefit children everywhere.”

Sheffield Children’s colleagues will also be heading out into the community to work with families on ways to stay safe and healthy. The Sheffield Children’s health bus will be in the Darnall Library car park, Britannia Road, S9 5JG, where families can meet the 0-19 (School Nurse and Health Visiting) Team to learn about healthy eating, and also meet the Violence Reduction Team who will be teaching basic safety tips like CPR and how to control bleeding.

The 0-19 Team and Dietetics will be in Meadowhall near Argos talking about healthy lifestyles. Families will also be able to try making their own fruit drinks through pedal power, with the help of two smoothie bikes.

At both events, families can find out more about nutritious food for low cost with recipes and guidance. There will also be information about other charities and organisations supporting healthy lifestyles, such as Food Works and Parkrun.

NHS partners for Super Saturdays include the children’s hospitals of Great Ormond Street, Alder Hey, Sheffield, Evelina London, Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol, Newcastle, Oxford and Southampton – ensuring children receive extra care across the country. These partners also regularly work together as part of the Children’s Hospital Alliance, which through collaboration and innovation seeks to improve the health of young people and the quality of care provided.

This is the fourth Super Saturday. The first Super Saturday was held in October 2021 and further events were held in March and July this year. They were originally created as part of the wider National Paediatric Accelerator Programme, an NHS England programme to address care backlogs.