The Paediatric Observation Priority Score (POPS) is a bespoke Emergency and Urgent care checklist which quickly scores (between 0-16) acutely ill children on a combination of physiological, behavioural and risk identifiers using easy to collect data.
This enables staff (even if inexperienced) to assess, prioritise and treat acutely ill children, and manage risk in busy clinical areas. It is designed to help with both the rapid detection of critically unwell children but also identify the most well children who can safely be afforded longer waits or re-directed to see difference clinical practitioners.
POPS has been validated locally and externally and importantly has no financial copyright or licence implications. It is free to use and be developed as other health care professionals see fit
Download the POPS chart, Training Package and app (Apple & Android)
Latest News!
POPS has performed well compared to the Irish PEWS and Irish Children’s Triage System in predicting admission and discharge of children in Emergency Departments
Hannon, Colm; Roland, Damian, O’Sullivan, Ronan Prediction of Pediatric Patient Admission/Discharge in the Emergency Department, Pediatric Emergency Care: February 4, 2022
In the first study of its kind POPS has been compared to parent-reported child wellness. Lots of learning on how parental concern correlates, and doesn’t correlate with, clinical assessments
Albutt, Abigail ; Roland, Damian, Lawton, Rebecca, Conner, Mark, O’Hara, Jane. Capturing Parents’ Perspectives of Child Wellness to Support Identification of Acutely Unwell Children in the Emergency Department, Journal of Patient Safety: December 16, 2021
Past Papers
Rowland A, Cotterill S, Heal C, Roland D Observational cohort study with internal and external validation of a predictive tool for identification of children in need of hospital admission from the emergency department: the Paediatric Admission Guidance in the Emergency Department (PAGE) score BMJ Open 2020;10:e043864. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2020-043864
Bonfield A, Roland D Inter-rater reliability in a bespoke scoring tool: the Paediatric Observation Priority Score Emergency Medicine Journal Published Online First: 25 November 2019. doi: 10.1136/emermed-2018-208268
Langton L, Bonfield A, Roland D. Inter-rater reliability in the Paediatric Observation Priority Score (POPS) Archives of Disease in Childhood 2018;103:458-462.
Roland, D., Jones, S., Coats, T. and Davies, F. Are Increasing Volumes of Children and Young People Presenting to Emergency Departments Due to Increasing Severity of Illness? Acad Emerg Med 2017, 24: 503–504. doi:10.1111/acem.131
Roland D, Arshad F, Coats T, and Davies F. Baseline Characteristics of the Paediatric Observation Priority Score in Emergency Departments outside Its Centre of Derivation BioMed Research International, vol. 2017, Article ID 9060852, 5 pages, 2017. doi:10.1155/2017/9060852
Roland D, Lewis G, Fielding P, Hakim C, Watts A and Davies F. The Paediatric Observation Priority Score: A System to Aid Detection of Serious Illness and Assist in Safe Discharge Open Journal of Emergency Medicine 2016 4(2) 38-44
Roland D, McCaffery K, and Davies F. (2016) Scoring systems in paediatric emergency care: Panacea or paper exercise?Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health 52 (2), 181–186.
Challen K and Roland D. Early Warning Scores: a health warning EMJ 2016, 33(11):812-817
Roland D, Shahzad MW, Davies F. The importance of currency in data trends. Arch Dis Child 2013;98:568-569
Please find training video links (these are old and need updating but provide a basic context to using POPS)
Further Information
Performing POPS (Short summary of undertaking a POPS assessment)
An Introduction to POPS (More detailed summary)