Our role
We identify opportunities to improve the safety and quality of health care services for children and young people across Queensland.
Our main focus is to:
- collect and review clinical information about childhood death, injury and illness
- identify statewide healthcare trends and opportunities for improvement
- make quality and safety recommendations to the Director-General of Queensland Health.
We work with other state, national and international organisations including the Queensland Family and Child Commission and the Queensland Coroners Court.
We’re an approved quality assurance committee under the Queensland Hospital and Health Boards Act 2011.
Read our terms of reference to learn more about how we work. You can also find out more about quality assurance committees on the Clinical Excellence Queensland website.
Our leadership
- Dr Sharon Anne McAuley, Chair
- Dr Clare Thomas, Deputy Chair
Our team
- Dr Diane Cruice
- Jodie Osborne
- Melissa Schmiede
Queensland Paediatric Quality Council (QPQC) steering committee
We’re supported by our steering committee who meet 3 times a year. The committee provides governance and oversight for the work we do. It also:
- provides strategic direction
- helps us apply for grant funding
- promotes our work
- develops relationships with community partners and stakeholders.
QPQC steering committee members
- Dr Sharon Anne McAuley, Chair
- Dr Clare Thomas, Deputy Chair
- Dr Julie McEniery
- A/Prof Dr Steve McTaggart
- Professor Leonie Callaway
- Dr Melissa (Meg) Cairns
- Kirstine Sketcher-Baker
- Coroner Ainslie Kirkegaard
- Frank Tracey
- Dr Clare Thomas
- Chris Smith
- Dr Jin Lim
- Dr Ka-Kiu Cheung
- Dr Neil Archer
- Dominic Tait
- Angela Young
- Zehnab Vayani
- Adele Fahey
- Leah Hardiman
Subcommittees
We have 2 subcommittees that review information about infant deaths and clinical incidents.
Reports and publications
Paediatric Matters
We publish our research in our periodic publication, Paediatric Matters.
- Recognising Deterioration: Children’s Early Warning Tool (CEWT)
- Safer shared sleep with infants part 2: Multiple SUDI risks identified
- Safer shared sleep with infants part 1: SUDI risk identified as low
- Diagnostic error part 2 – cognitive factors and clinical reasoning
- Diagnostic error part 1 – getting to the correct diagnosis faster
- Plan for success: reducing vascular access device injuries
- Infant reflux and inclined sleep: why is this a SUDI risk?
- Tips and tricks: reducing cast related harm in children
- Sudden unexpected deaths in infancy (SUDI) – part 2
- Sudden unexpected deaths in infancy (SUDI) – part 1
- Testicular torsion – a time critical condition
- Sepsis: detect early – could this be sepsis?
Reports
We publish our triennial report every 3 years.
Guidelines and research
- Safer infant sleep clinical guideline on the Queensland Health website
- Measuring the effectiveness of the Pēpi-Pod® Program in reducing infant mortality in Queensland
- Multi-incident analysis of SAC1 clinical incident reports involving children 2015–2019
- Testicular torsion education poster
- Sudden unexpected death in infancy among vulnerable families’ issues paper on the Child Death Review board website
- Multi-incident analysis of reviews of serious adverse clinical events in children with serious bacterial infection or sepsis in Queensland 2012–2017 on the Wiley website.
- The voice of the infant. Cause of death coding does not always reflect what really mattered in the life of the infant who died suddenly and unexpectedly. Poster Presentation, Perinatal Society of Australia and New Zealand Conference, Auckland, 2018.
Contact us
If you have any questions about our work or projects email us at QPQC@health.qld.gov.au.