Children's Age Limit?

Specialties Pediatric

Published

I'm a future Brit nurse (next year to be exact) and I applied for chidren's nursing. Now I know it's says children, but what exactly is the limit? I.e. from what age to what age?

Cheers!

Usually it is up to age 17Years up to 18th B day. However, if the person has life-long develomental delays, I have seen them much older still on the pedi floors. Also, the staff will know the family and the persons history well. I hope that helps.

Cheers! Yes it has helped. Hmm..18? That was a kind of a shock, but hey, anything for to become a nurse ;)

Specializes in Paed Ortho, PICU, CTICU, Paeds Retrieval.

In the UK paediatric patients are usually till the age of 16. After this age a patient can be treated in an adult centre, but shed13911 is absolutely right - you can find patients older than that in the paediatric setting if their care is best managed by the team who has seen them through childhood. We have recently had a 42 year old on our paediatric cardiac unit (paeds only hospital) because all of his previous (rather complicated) cardiac surgery was carried out as a child with us.

The pediatrician I work for and the others in the practice see pts until 21 or they are out of college. Mostly because their parents insurance still covers them through college. And honestly, it is easier for some of these young adults to get in to see their ped for an illness than it is to try and find a new internal med MD who can actually see them in a reasonable amount of time.

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