School Nursing

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Healthcare services can be confusing....

Our website - CLCH Children's Health Matters is for parents, carers and young people to find information about the services available for children, young people and families in the local area. You will also find helpful resources tailored to the child or young person’s age and stage of development.

You can also find out how to contact our staff directly if you have a concern.

School Nursing

Our school nursing teams help children to make the best possible start to life by monitoring their health and promoting informed health choices from an early age.

School nurses work with families and children aged between 4-19 across education and health, providing a link between school, home and the community. Their aim is to improve the health and wellbeing of children. 

School nurses start working with children and their families from when your child starts school up to 19 years of age supporting them through the transition from primary to secondary school. 

School nurses are usually linked to a school or group of schools and are not based in schools. They work in partnership with their linked schools and other professionals to ensure your child's health needs are met. This may include signposting or referring to other services. 

Your school might also have a welfare officer/first aider who is in school every day to help if your child is injured or unwell. Their role is very important but is different to that of the school nurse. 

Our school nurses are experienced in supporting children with health conditions so that they can make the most out of their education. 

Each school has a named school nurse who you can speak to if you have any worries.

National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP)

The NCMP is a national programme led by school nursing teams where children are weighed and measured at school. This happens in reception (ages 4 and 5) and year 6 (ages 10 and 11). Your school nursing teams will weigh you child and measure their height at school. You will receive a letter about the NCMP before the school nursing team are due to come to your child’s school, if you do not want your child to be part of the NCMP the letter will explain how you can opt out. For more information about the NCMP please see here.

Hearing and Vision

If you have concerns about your child’s hearing or vision, you can contact your local school nursing team. They will be able to advise you on where you can get more advice and support. For hearing concerns, they will be able to advise if there is a local screening programme and if required, refer your child for further assessment. 

Health Questionnaires

To best support your child in school you will be asked to complete a Health Questionnaire by the school nursing service. This is separate to the questionnaires the school may have asked you to complete. This will help us identify if your child has any health needs, what support we can offer or to sign post you to other services who can provide support. If you have not received a questionnaire by the end of the first half term after your child started reception or a new school please contact the school reception or your school nursing service.

 

Promoting Healthy Lifestyles  

We promote healthy lifestyles for children, young people and their families. 

Supporting Health Needs

School nurses are qualified nurses who work with children, young people and their families. When a child or young person has a health condition they can provide advice and support acting as a link between health and education.

Your school will need to have a health care plan for your child which relates to their health condition. This covers information about any medications they have and how to look after them if they become unwell. While this is the responsibility of your school they may ask the school nurse to help by looking at the health care plan as a health professional, this is more common if this is your child's first health care plan.

If your child needs to go to A&E the school nurse will usually be informed. The school nurse may contact you to find out how your child is and give any relevant health advice.

“I have found the School Nursing team beneficial as they have the right amount of time for me and the School Nurse gives me more information regarding my health and how to manage my health in school and home. I feel this is helpful as I learn more about what I can do to manage my health.” Young person reflecting on experience working with school nurse since year 2.

Advice and Support

Your school nurse is available for you to talk to if you have any concerns about your child's physical or emotional health.

They are able to refer your child to other professionals where a need is identified and can provide you with advice and support including how you can access other services.

You can self-refer to the school nursing service by contacting the single point of access number on the ‘I'm concerned, who can I talk to?’ section. Or you can ask your child's teacher who the school nurse is and/or to refer your child to the school nurse.

Topics you might talk to the school nurse about include:

  • Emotional and behavioural concerns
  • Eating or weight concerns
  • Sleep concerns
  • Bed-wetting/enuresis
  • Your child's mental health
  • Difficulties at home that may be affecting your child

“The school nursing service has been a good service and helped to educate us on healthy eating and ways to lose weight. They have also spent a lot of time monitoring weight and have had a lot of engagement since they were introduced to us.” Parent of Primary age child

“The school staff nurse referred my son to CAMHS due to my concerns (about ADHD).Meeting the school staff nurse was a very good experience. She took her time to explain everything and told me who she would be in contact with on my behalf.” Parent of Primary age child.

Working with vulnerable children 

The school nursing team have a key role in working with children and their families when a child is identified as being vulnerable.

Their role includes completing health assessments and supporting the child and family to manage any identified health needs.

They can also work with other professionals including your family GP, hospital departments, social services and voluntary organisations acting as the health link between the school, you as parents and relevant organisations.

For children who are not in school, the school nurse can work with the child, family and other professionals to ensure the child's health and education needs are being met. can omit the word school. 

“The School Nurse is approachable as I feel I can talk about anything to her.” Young person.

We have produced videos where you can learn more about children's health and wellbeing which includes staying active and eating healthy and mental heath.

If you're concerned about yourself or your child and they are attending a Brent school we are available to help and support in many different ways and can support you to access other services in the local community. 

Brent 0-19 Single Point of Access (SPA)

Providing feedback on our services

It is important for us to hear what you think of our services so that we know what we are doing well and where we need to make improvements. Whether you wish to pay us a compliment, raise a concern or make a formal complaint, our patient advice and liaison service (PALS) team are here to help and all feedback given will be kept confidential.

You can find out more about how to provide feedback here.

If you would like to complete a patient story please speak to the team CLCH health team. Patient stories are a chance for you to share more information about your experiences of being cared for by our services. We collect patient stories in multiple different ways including videos, written stories, pictures and conversations with you that we then type. 

Contacting our PALS team

  • Telephone: 0800 368 0412
  • Email: clchpals@nhs.net
  • Post: PALS team, Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust, 5-7 Parsons Green, London, SW6 4UL

Providing feedback on this website

We want this website to be helpful to you and your family and welcome feedback on how we can improve it. If you spot anything that's incorrect, confusing or have suggestions for how we can make it better please email us on clcht.health.matters@nhs.net this mailbox will be checked weekly and should not be used for urgent or clinical requests.

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