Toggle site contrast Toggle Contract

COVID-19 and how we’re delivering our services

  • We have made a number of temporary changes to our children and young people’s services to ensure the safety of our patients, their families and carers, and our staff.

These changes are in line with NHS England and Government guidelines.

Help in an emergency

If your child’s seriously ill, injured or their life’s at risk, call 999 immediately.

See our guide on how to get help in emergency situations.

Find out what happens if your child needs to be admitted to hospital

Enquiries about the COVID-19 vaccination programme for 12-15 year olds

All of our school nurses are busy visiting schools, and are currently unable to respond to clinical queries.

Changes to our services

 

Community paediatric services

We have postponed all routine appointments until further notice. This includes neurodevelopmental pathway assessments except for vulnerable families or in cases where there’s safeguarding reasons.

We’ll continue with clinics for:

  • looked after children
  • child protection medicals
  • education
  • health and care plans.

School nursing services

We are no longer restricting any services as a result of Covid-19. All our staff will adhere to current NHS infection prevention control processes.

To contact the school nursing team

 

We have replaced our child health drop-in sessions with appointments only.

We’ll continue with:

  • antenatal contacts
  • new birth visits
  • 6 to 8 week contact
  • all routine child health and developmental reviews at 10 months, 24 months and 2 and a half years. We may do these by phone or in person, depending on circumstances.

Contact our health visiting teams for advice and support

 

 

Community nursing services for children with a learning disability

We have postponed all visits until further notice.

We’ll continue to provide continence products.

For more information and support call 01296 566045 between 9am and 3pm. Leave a message with your contact details and a member of our team will get back to you.

Physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech and language therapy

We’re continuing with these services but we have made some changes to deliver to those most in need and maintain safety at all times.

We’ll provide support 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.

Children who have existing physiotherapy and occupational therapy programmes will continue to have access to therapy support.

For children needing speech and language therapy children, we’re prioritising those with complex and urgent health needs

Referrals

We’ll review new referrals and give support to the most urgent cases including those with complex health and care needs.

Referrals that meet the need of specialist pathways can access therapy support. These include:

  • dysfluency
  • selective mutism
  • developmental coordination delay
  • chronic fatigue.

If you’re a healthcare professional, find out how to refer someone to our child therapy services.

Speech and language therapy

You can access our advice service for early years children without referral by calling 01296 566045.

School advice sessions

Speech and language school advice sessions will continue.

Occupational therapy school advice clinics will not be available until the summer term as we’re supporting urgent care needs in our acute hospitals.

Children with therapy on their education, health and care plan (ECHP)

They’ll have access to virtual or face-to-face therapy support. If your child does remote classroom learning, and needs face to face support, we can provide home visits following a clinical risk assessment.

Virtual training sessions

We usually provide these for parents, schools and other professionals but we’ll postpone them until the summer term. We’ll update you via our website and may email you to invite you to certain sessions.

For more information and support call 01296 566045 between 9am and 3pm. Leave a message with your contact details and a member of our team will get back to you.