Management of infants presenting with fever: a review of pan-London hospital guidelines and national guidelines

Febrile infants often have self-limiting conditions. Differentiating them from infants with serious bacterial infections can be challenging. We aimed to understand how febrile infants are managed across London, by analysing the management steps from local clinical practical guidelines (CPGs) and comparing them to the national guideline 143 (NG143). The ten hospitals using local CPGs recommended doing blood tests for febrile infants and often had more cautious advice about performing lumbar punctures and starting antibiotics. All CPGs scored lower on quality, as per AGREE-II tool, when compared with NG143. CPGs giving more cautious advice, exposes more infants to invasive investigations and treatments.