A new critical-care ambulance service, which will transfer seriously ill children between hospitals, has been launched.

The Paediatric Retrieval Service can transfer seriously ill children, up to the age of 16, from hospitals anywhere in Ireland to Dublin's Temple Street Children's Hospital and Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin.

Until now, if a child was being transferred from a regional hospital, a doctor had to travel with the child and then back again.

"This wasn't always ideal for the child and would also leave the regional hospital understaffed for a period of time. Now there is a dedicated team of specialists who travel to collect the child, providing expert care for the child from the moment they arrive," commented Health Minister, Leo Varadkar.

The team usually includes a paediatric doctor and a specialist paediatric nurse. It travels to where the sick child is and stabilises them if necessary, before overseeing the child's transfer to Temple Street or Crumlin ‘under close medical supervision'.

The new service has dedicated resources at the National Ambulance Service base in Cherry Orchard, Dublin, and is available to inpatient and Emergency Department (ED) patients who have to be transferred because of the seriousness or a deterioration in their condition.