Over the past two months the youth group has met twice. In the first instance we were walked through the day in the life of an A&E consultant who described their job as being a ‘Jack of All Trades but a Master of None’.


The talk opened my eyes to some different aspects of the medical world which I may have not fully been aware of up until this point. This may have altered the way I look to take my career as the prospect of being of being a first-line medic is exciting to say the least. We then brushed up on what was said in the previous month’s meeting by filling in members of the group who may not have been there and finalising some of our ideas. The  ‘Space’ theme still got my vote!

The next meeting we had a month later. We looked at the healthcare charter we could use on entry to the rebranded ‘youth’ centre. We were joined by the children’s team who gave us feedback on our theme ideas and that they had gone down as a success when put to younger and older children.

We looked at examples from other healthcare charters from around the UK, some of which used phrases taken from the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and others which used simpler wording to portray their message. We concluded that taking bits and pieces of both designs would best suit our charter. We took an aesthetically pleasing colour scheme from one charter and pieced together wording from another to attempt to form something which a child may find easy to read and take some confidence from that the service being provided would be to best suit their wants and needs.

It is great to be involved with other young people to work on improving the facilities for and experience of young people who find themselves visiting a hospital – which is often a daunting prospect in itself.