GPs and Other Professionals
The service is commissioned by Public Health in the Local Authority and leads on the delivery of the Healthy Child Programme, taking over from the Health Visiting service.
School Nurses work along a continuum from supporting individual children and young people to work within schools and the wider community. A public health approach is taken to address a wider range of health and wellbeing issues and tackle health inequalities. The service works with other health professionals including community paediatrics, therapies and CAMHS. In addition to our partners from across education, social care, and voluntary sector organisations. School Nursing contributes to a range of partnership work including safeguarding, emotional health and wellbeing, Early Help and special educational needs and disability.
How do we deliver our service?
The service has Specialist Community Public Health Nurses (SCPHN’s) who are qualified nurses with additional post registration degrees in Public Health Nursing. They are supported by staff nurses, nursery nurses, clinical support workers, apprentices, and administrators.
Access to the service is via a single point of contact. This is operational on Monday’s to Friday’s 9am-5pm (excludes bank holidays). The contact number is 01922 423349. If you need to share patient sensitive information with the service then please use our secure email schoolnursingadmin.walsall@nhs.net. The single point of contact is manned by our administrative staff and a qualified nurse. GP’s and professionals can contact the service to gain advice or information about a child or young person. The normal confidentiality restrictions apply to sharing information.
We also work as part of locality teams which align to our partners in education and social care. There are four localities: East, South, North and West. Each team is led by a SCPHN and supported by staff nurses and nursery nurses. The team provides a link between the service and schools, Early Help & safeguarding professionals in each of the locality areas. The list of schools, their locality and their named nurses can be accessed via this link Named School Nurse (Locality Model) List 21-22
When and how to make a referral to the School Nursing Service?
GP’s and other professionals can refer children and young people to the service for a range of support including:
- Behavioural problems
- Emotional health problems such as low levels of anxiety or low mood (excludes self harm and suicidal idealisation, please contact CAMHS for advice)
- Enuresis
- Toilet Training
- Support with weight management
- medical problems that are impacting on school attendance
The GP will need to complete our Referral Form for School Nursing Services (GP) and other professionals complete this Referral Form for School Nursing Services
All referrals will need to be sent to the service via secure email address schoolnursingadmin.walsall@nhs.net. Referrals are discussed at a weekly meeting where a decision will be made about the appropriate intervention or support to offer to the child or young person. We will send a letter or email to the parent/carer and invite them to ‘opt in’ to our service by contacting the single point of access on 01922 423349. The professional who has made the referral will be kept informed about the progress of the referral.
Is a referral always required?
The service has an open referral system. This means that parents/carers and young people can access the service without the need for a GP or other professional making a referral. There are many interventions that can be directly accessed by a parent/carer. We encourage parents/carers to follow our stepped approach to care. This means that if a child or young person is presenting with a problem and no previous interventions or assessments have been tried, then we recommend that the first option is to book onto one of our parent/carer workshops. The workshops provide information about the problem, strategies to try at home, sign posting to useful resources and other services and details about next steps if the ‘self help’ strategies do not resolve the problem. We offer the following workshops and GP’s can give a parent/carer a copy of the attached leaflets and advice them to contact our single point of access to book a place.
- Understanding your child’s behaviour
- Understanding your child’s emotions workshop
- Supporting your child to become toilet trained
- Understanding Common Toileting Problems in school-aged children (includes soiling and constipation)_
- Supporting your child to stop bed-wetting
Parents/carers and young people can use the single point of contact details and either telephone 01922 423349 or email schoolnursingadmin.walsall@nhs.net. In addition the service operates a ChatHealth text service. This service allows parents/carers and young people to contact a School Nurse directly via text. They contact can be made confidentially and anonymously.
Information leaflets for parents, carers and young people
Our service is a universal service and we try and provide parents, carers and young people with information about our service and how to access the service. Please print the leaflets of and give them to your patients.