Useful Management Information

The Paediatric Learning Inner-Directed Oral Nutrition (LION) service is an acute service for paediatric patients requiring input from a multi-disciplinary feeding team. The LION team consists of clinicians who have specialist knowledge and skills in children’s feeding and include:

  • Dietitian
  • Speech Pathologist
  • Occupational Therapist 
  • Psychologist
  • Registered Nurse

To be eligible for this clinic patients will be at risk of hospitalisation or nasogastric tube insertion due to concerns with three or more of the following:

  • faltering growth,
  • reduced oral feeding,
  • swallow safety concerns,
  • Oral aversion, pressure feeding or related difficulties with reading infant cues,
  • significant parent stress/worry.

Patients may also be eligible for this clinic:

  • To manage enteral or oral feeding where condition has the potential to require more complex or emergent care if MDT assessment is delayed
  • Requires MDT support for tube weaning as showing signs of readiness to tube wean.

Minimum Referral Criteria

Does your patient meet the minimum referral criteria?
Category 1 (appointment within 30 calendar days)

At risk of hospital admission or nasogastric tube insertion

Concerns with >3 of the following:

  • Faltering growth
  • Less than expected weight gains
  • Decline in growth trend
  •  Reduced oral feeding
  • Oral/Feeding Aversion
  • Suck feeding concerns
  • Delayed oral motor skills impacting on ability to eat age-appropriate foods or drink

Swallow safety concerns (e.g. recurrent chest infections, coughing, wet breathing)

Pressure feeding and related difficulties with reading infant cues (e.g. over or under responsive cues, unpredictable state transitions, co-regulation)

 Significant parent stress/worry-in relation to feeding

Category 2 (appointment within 90 calendar )
  • Not at immediate risk of hospital admission or nasogastric insertion
  • Enteral or oral feeding where condition has the potential to require more complex or emergent care if MDT assessment is delayed.
  • Requires MDT tube weaning assessment as showing signs of readiness to tube wean.
  • Condition is unlikely to require more complex care if MDT assessment is delayed.
Category 3 (appointment within 365 calendar days )
  • No category 3 criteria

If your patient does not meet the minimum referral criteria

  • Assessment and management information may be found on a range of conditions at HealthPathways
  • If the patient does not meet the criteria for referral but the referring practitioner believes the patient requires specialist review, a clinical override may be requested:
    • Please explain why (e.g. warning signs or symptoms, clinical modifiers, uncertain about diagnosis, etc.)
  • Please note that your referral may not be accepted or may be redirected to another service

Essential Referral Information

  • Contact details for parents/carers
  • Reason for referral
  • Medical history
  • Feeding history

Additional Referral Information

  • Social history
  • Psychosocial information including parental mental health, social stressors
Last updated 26 March 2026

Send Referrals To

Smart Referrals

Preferred Method
About Smart Referrals

Secure Web Transfer

Medical Objects Account: GQ42150009Z

HealthLink EDI: Qldgchsd

Internal Referrals

Paediatric Learning Inner-Directed Oral Nutrition (LION) qhRefer

Fax

(07) 5687 4497

Post

Booking and Referral Centre
Gold Coast University Hospital
1 Hospital Boulevard
Southport QLD 4215

Enquiries

1300 559 083

Related HealthPathways

No directly related pathways found

Service Availability

If you would like to send a named referral, please address it to the specialist listed above, who will allocate a suitably qualified specialist to see the patient. Alternatively, you can view a full list of our specialists.

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