The increasing demand for unscheduled care of patients with acute minor illnesses represents a challenge for health systems in many countries (Gill, Dawes, Sharpe, & Mayou, 1998; Kocher & Asplin, 2013). Many health systems have therefore developed specific programs to favor the attention of patients with acute minor illnesses in primary care. The ideal system should be timely, accessible, and meet patients' needs and expectations. However, the issue is complex because primary care centers are usually overworked since they have to provide care to an increasingly higher number of patients with chronic diseases, often in the setting of a limited number of healthcare professionals (Bodenheimer & Pham, 2010). As a result, a number of healthcare systems have implemented programs in which the unscheduled acute care of adult patients with minor illnesses is delivered by nurse practitioners. The rationale of these programs is based on a large body of evidence indicating that nurse practitioners are able to provide patients with minor illnesses at a high standard of care similar to that provided by general practitioners. A systematic review of 11 randomized and 23 observational studies comparing nurse practitioners and physicians providing care at the first point of contact in a primary care setting showed no differences in quality of care delivered, as estimated by prescriptions, return consultations, or referrals between the two groups, whereas patients' satisfaction was higher with nurse practitioners (Horrocks, Anderson, & Salisbury, 2002).The current study was aimed at assessing the feasibility and efficacy of a program of nurse management for unscheduled consultations of children with acute minor illnesses. Earlier reports of nursing care for children with acute minor illnesses derive from the Pediatric Nurse-Practitioner Program. This was a program developed in the late 1960s at the University of Colorado aimed at providing total health care for children living in medically deprived communities (Silver, Ford, & Day, 1968; Silver, Ford, & Stearly, 1967). Nurses provided care to well children as well as sick children with acute or chronic conditions. Children with acute minor illnesses were cared for by nurses using a pre-established plan of management, while children severely ill were referred to a physician for immediate medical care. Although similar programs for children with acute minor illnesses have since then been established, there is limited information on the effectiveness of such programs in current nursing practice (Campbell, Kearsley, Herdman, & Maric, 1995; Schiff, Fraser, & Walters, 1969; Yousey & Carr, 2005). Knowledge about the effectiveness of programs of nurse practitioner management of children with acute minor illnesses is important because acute conditions in the pediatric population are very common and differ from those in adults. In two randomized controlled trials of nurse practitioner care versus general practitioner care for patients requesting same day consultation, 896 out of the 2,660 patients included in the study were children (Kinnerseley, Anderson, Parry, Clement, Archard, & Turton, 2000; Venning, Durie, Roland, Roberts, & Leese, 2000). In both studies, patients' satisfaction was higher with nurse practitioners but no other specific analyses were reported for the pediatric population. Although to our knowledge there are no specific studies assessing the frequency of unscheduled consultations in the pediatric population in primary care, they probably represent a major workload for health systems in a manner similar to that for the adult population (Bodenheimer & Pham, 2010; Kocher & Asplin, 2013). Due to this limited of information, we report an observational study assessing the results of a program of nurse management for unscheduled consultations of children with acute minor illnesses in primary care in a large geographical area in Catalonia, northwest Spain. …