Telephone consultations have been shown to be beneficial in some areas of medicine but this approach has not been well studied in children. The aims of this study are to determine whether telephone consultations would improve quality of life, patient satisfaction, proportion of consultations attended and whether they would be safe and reduce costs for patients and the National Health Service (NHS). Investigators plan a randomised controlled trial involving 92 participants recruited from amongst the 250 children and adolescents aged between 8 and 16 years who attend the regional paediatric IBD centre in Manchester. Half will be assigned to telephone consultations, and half to face to face consultations. The study would have the approval of the local ethics committee and participants would have provided written consent. Investigators will compare outcomes in the two groups over 2 years. If telephone consultations prove to be effective, the NHS could offer children with IBD the choice of either telephone consultation or face to face consultation for their outpatient followup. Those who are doing well would not have to make unnecessary journeys to the hospital. This would free up clinic spaces and allow patients who are unwell, and new patients to be seen more quickly, thus reducing waiting