Paediatric respiratory

Conditions we investigate or treat

• Cystic fibrosis 
• Wheezing disorders including difficult to treat asthma 
• Persistent cough 
• Primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD) and other bronchiectasis 
• Recurrent lung infection 
• Lung disease from other conditions (e.g. sickle cell, cerebral palsy) 
• Immunodeficiency 
• Congenital lung abnormality 
• Airway problems 
• Obstructive sleep apnoea and other sleep-disordered breathing problems (including sleep studies) 
• Obesity hypoventilation syndrome 
• Non-invasive ventilation and tracheostomy 
• Aspiration lung disease 

Services we offer

• Sleep study 
• Home oximetry 
• Bronchoscopy 
• Induced sputum 
• Spirometry 
• Exercise testing 
• Fitness to fly testing 
• Allergy testing (for respiratory allergens only) 
• Oesophageal pH-Impedance study 
• Obesity investigation 
• Swallow assessment 
• Exhaled nitric oxide testing 
• Nasal nitric oxide testing (for PCD) 
• Sweat testing (for CF) 
• Inhaler technique training 
• Asthma education 
• Respiratory physiotherapy 
• Complex lung function

Most respiratory conditions can be managed in the community. Where referral is required to our services, specific criteria apply to some services.

• Most cystic fibrosis (CF) patients are picked up via the newborn screening pathway; other strongly suspected CF patients will be seen urgently in the general respiratory clinic following telephone discussion (bleep 1042 via switchboard).
• The Metabolic obesity clinic can only accept children with BMI >3.5 z-score above the mean; this can be assessed by this UK-WHO growth chart app. These are seen by Dr Gin Peh in general paediatrics unless there are respiratory concerns.
• External sweat test requests must come from secondary care.
• Sleep study requests must come from secondary care.
• The asthma clinic accepts children uncontrolled at BTS step 3 or who have evidence of poor control with salbutamol overuse, x1 hospital admission, or x2 ED attendance or oral steroid course in two years.
• The difficult asthma service accepts referrals from secondary care; suitable patients will have been admitted to ICU or required IV bronchodilator recently, or are uncontrolled at BTS step 3-4.

Professor Grigg is based at the Blizard Institute of Queen Mary University of London, conducting basic and clinical research on children’s lung health. He supervises research fellows and specialises in preschool wheeze and pollution research. Many of our junior medical staff and consultants have done research degrees at the Blizard Institute and Professor Grigg encourages approaches from interested candidates.

Through our involvement with the organisations such as the MCRN, the PCRN, the CLAHRC, the The CF Trust and AUKCAR we offer our families opportunities to benefit from involvement in clinical research such as the WAIT, TORPEDO-CF, CHILD-EU, and UK-ESPE studies, as well as trials of novel CF therapies.

The ongoing ACACIA study examines asthma control in children in Africa.

The respiratory team has established many courses and training sessions to cover a wide range of topics in the field of respiratory medicine and lung function testing.

Aimed at both primary and secondary care professionals, we offer the following courses:

• Asthma study day
• NIV train the trainer
• ARTP spirometry

If there are courses you are interested in but are not listed, please contact Faiza Khan.