Towards safer transport of sick and injured children.

A Paediatric Emergency Transport Service has been operating from the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit of the Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, for the last three years. The records of the first 158 patients evacuated have been analysed and are reported. Problems relating to the care of the airway and artificial airway have been the most common. The need for careful pre-transport resuscitation and stabilisation is emphasised. The educational role of a transport service both at the time of initial consultation and at the time of retrieval is stressed.