Paediatric services and Children and Young People’s services
Changes to paediatric and children and young people’s services provided by the Trust during the COVID-19 pandemic
To support the increased demand for critical care due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Trust has made a number of temporary changes to our children and young people’s services to ensure the safety of patients, families carers and staff. These changes are in line with NHS England and Government guidelines.
The changes to the services provision for the families we care for are detailed below.
Paediatric services
- Information for parents whose child has had a test for COVID-19.
Community nursing services for children with a learning disability
- All visits have been postponed until further notice information is available via our website and an advice line is available for support.
- Continence products will continue to be provided
- For further information and support please all 01296 566045 between 9am – 3pm. Please leave a clear message with your contact details and a member of the team will get back to you.
Community paediatric services
- All routine appointments have been postponed until further notice – this includes Neurodevelopment Pathway assessments (see note 1 at the end of this page)
- We will continue to provide: clinics for looked after children; child protection medicals; Education, Health and Care Plans.
School nursing services
The following services have been suspended indefinitely:
- vision screening
- National Childhood Measurement Programme
- School Health advice clinics
- Training for school staff re PSHE/SRE
We will continue to provide:
- Support for vulnerable families including those on a Child Protection plan, child in need and looked
after children (see note 2 at the end of this page) - Support and advice to children and young people with a day or night time wetting problem (Enuresis
clinics) will continue by phone. - Targeted support and care plan activity for vulnerable children will continue by phone.
- School aged Immunisation programme, where possible
- Please contact the school nursing team by phone: 01296 567833 or by email schoolhealthenquiries@nhs.net
Health visiting services
- Child Health drop-ins are not able to take place currently and are being replaced by ‘appointment only’
sessions. - We will continue to provide: antenatal contacts; new birth visits; 6-8 week contact & all routine child
health and developmental reviews at 10 months and 2-2 1/2 years. (See note 3 at the end of this page) - Health visiting teams can be contacted by phone for advice and support, parents/carers should have
the number for their team or you can find the numbers for all teams on the Trust website by clicking
here.
Physiotherapy, occupational therapy & speech and language therapy services
Services for children and young people requiring support from a therapist are continuing to be provided. To ensure services are delivered to those who have most need and safety is maintained at all times, there are some changes to the ways that services will be delivered.
How we will deliver the service
- All new referrals will be reviewed and support given to the most urgent cases including those with complex health and care needs.
- Speech and Language Therapy advice for Early Years children is available from a speech and language therapist without referral by calling: 01296 566045.
- Referrals that meet the requirements of specialist pathways e.g. dysfluency, selective mutism, developmental coordination delay, chronic fatigue can access support from a therapist.
- Occupational Therapy school advice clinics will not be available until the summer term for schools and settings as the service is supporting the urgent care needs in the acute hospitals.
- Speech and language school advice sessions will continue and information has been provided to schools on how to book these sessions.
- Virtual training available for parents, education settings and other professionals via Microsoft Teams will be postponed until the summer term. Dates for these virtual training sessions will be posted on the website you may also receive an email invitation to some specific sessions.
- Children who have therapy provision on their EHCP will have access to virtual or face to face support from a therapist. If your child is accessing remote classroom learning, and requires face to face support from a therapist, home visits can be provided following a clinical risk assessment.
- Children who have existing Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy programmes will have access to support from a therapist. Speech and Language Therapy children with complex and urgent health needs will be given priority.
- Support will be provided via a mixture of face to face and virtual sessions depending on the clinical need. Face to face contact can be at home, in a clinic or in schools/early years settings/colleges.
- Advice, training and resources are available on our website and on request.
Click here for physiotherapy website resources
Click here for occupational therapy website resources
Click here for speech and language therapy website resources
For further information and support please call 01296 566045 between 9am – 3pm. Please leave a clear message with your contact details and a member of the team will get back to you.