NSW to Build New Institute for Emergency Care of Seriously Injured Children
New South Wales will establish the NSW Institute for Paediatric Trauma to improve emergency care for seriously injured children. It will be based at Sydney Children’s Hospital in Randwick and is expected to be operational within six months. NSW Health Minister Ryan Park said the plan follows emergency responses to critical incidents, citing the Bondi Beach and Bondi Junction events The Guardian.
The institute will bring together clinicians, researchers and specialists to provide training and simulations across the health system. Clinicians are frontline health workers such as doctors and nurses, and simulations are realistic practice drills, like a flight simulator for pilots. The aim is to prepare medical teams for complex paediatric trauma cases, meaning serious injuries in children, from first emergency treatment through to long-term rehabilitation. The base will be at Randwick, and training will start there as well.
Future plans include exploring expansion across regional NSW and into the ACT. The ACT regularly transfers paediatric trauma cases to Sydney hospitals. That referral pattern gives the Sydney base a statewide and cross-border role in training and clinical coordination.
The institute aims to extend simulation training beyond hospital staff to paramedics, firefighters, police and the State Emergency Service. The model links hospital-based trauma care with prehospital and first-response agencies. Prehospital means care at the scene and on the way to hospital. It covers the full pathway from scene response and emergency treatment through to rehabilitation.
Dr Guy Henry is co-director of trauma services at Randwick. He treated victims of the 2024 Westfield Bondi Junction stabbings and the Bondi Beach terror attack. Park linked the institute proposal to the emergency responses to those Bondi incidents.
Henry cited the 2017 Manchester Arena attack response, where hospital staff had completed a mass casualty simulation six weeks before, as evidence practice improves outcomes The Guardian. Henry said the lesson was that rehearsal helps teams cope under surge conditions, when many injured people arrive at once. Simulation lets mixed teams test triage, communication and clinical roles before a live incident. Triage means sorting patients by urgency.
Randwick already sits inside the state trauma structure. Sydney Children’s Hospital, Randwick operates one of three Level 1 Paediatric Trauma Centres in NSW. Level 1 means equipped to handle the most severe cases. Its trauma service provides immediate care to children with injuries ranging from minor to major. The Centre for Trauma Care, Prevention, Education and Research (CTCPER) is the core trauma centre at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead. The NSW Institute of Trauma and Injury Management supports trauma professionals and the NSW trauma system with training, monitoring, research and data.
The broader context here is coordination across distance and across jobs. Severe injury care in children depends on fast stabilisation, correct triage and transfer, and steady care into rehabilitation. A single institute that joins clinicians, researchers and specialists can standardise that sequence. Extending simulation to police, fire, paramedic and State Emergency Service staff widens the shared operating picture.
Looking at what this means for the system, the next test will be implementation. A six-month timeline puts early focus on staffing, curriculum and simulation capacity at Randwick. Any later move into regional NSW and the ACT would need steady education delivery outside major centres. The measure will be whether joint training changes readiness for the next complex paediatric case, however and wherever it presents.
