Triage of children with mental health difficulties presenting in a&e in a general hospital.

In Wexford and Waterford, an "out of hours" child psychiatric service has been developed, in order to provide help when the regular Child Psychiatry services (CAMHS) are not accessible. Providing a service for under 18 years old patients with mental health issues presenting in the Emergency Department (ED) of a General hospital, it functions with extremely limited resources (a consultant psychiatrist and a doctor in psychiatric training), and therefore needs an efficient triage procedure. The purpose of this article is to review the literature about existing triage tools, and especially the 2016 Irish Children's Triage System (ICTS) and to discuss how to optimise triaging our specific patients in this new 'out of hours' CAMHS cover for Waterford /Wexford area. CONCLUSION: A post triage tool and some clinical changes could improve the service.