What is CATCH

CATCH is the Children's Advice and Transport Coordination Hub.

We provide:

• non-critical paediatric inter-hospital transfers
• specialist medical advice to health professionals.

Our advice line

Our 24 hour advice line provides non-critical specialist paediatric medical and nursing advice to:

• hospital staff
• GPs
• health professionals.

When to call us

Call us on 13 22 82 (13 CATCH) to:

• organise an inter-hospital transfer
• get support to look after your patient at your hospital
• refer patients in our catchment area to our emergency department.

You can also email us at catch@health.qld.gov.au.

If your patient is critically ill, follow your usual in-region pathways.  

Triage tools to check if you need a critical or non-critical transfer

We have triage tools you can use to check if your patient needs a non-critical or critical transfer.

• Trauma transport triage tool
• Non-trauma and medical transport triage tool

Call us if you're not sure what type of transfer you need.

Non-critical patient transfers

We help with public and private inter-hospital transfers across Queensland and northern New South Wales for paediatric patients.

If you don’t work for Queensland Health

Call us on 13 22 82 (13 CATCH) and we'll help you manage the transfer process.

If you work for Queensland Health

Use the Inter-hospital Transfer and Retrieval Application.

If you don't use ieMR, you might also need to fill in a nursing handover transfer checklist. We'll let you know when we get your transfer request.

If your patient needs a peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC), call us to discuss your patient's needs before you make a transfer request. Read our PICC insertion in non-QCH inpatients process to learn more.

Neonatal transfers into QCH

For patient transfers to our neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) or special care nursery (SCU) call us on 13 22 82 (13 CATCH). You can also read our planned transition of NICU and SCN patients policy to learn more.

Paediatric telehealth consultations

Our nurses can help you access telehealth consultations with our paediatric specialists. The consultations are for health professionals at Queensland and northern New South Wales hospitals who are caring for paediatric patients that need specialist support.

For more information call us on 13 22 82 (13 CATCH).