Health Visiting

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Healthcare services can be confusing....

Our website - CLCH Children's Health Matters is for parents/carers and expectant parents to find information about the services available for children and families in the local area. You will also find helpful resources tailored to your child as they grow and develop.

You can also find out how to contact our staff directly if you have a concern about your child's health.

Midwifery

During your pregnancy you will be under the care of a midwife, midwives are trained health professionals who are experts in maternal health, birth and care of the new born baby. They will care for you during the birth of your baby and in the first 10 days after you have a baby, this will include offering a Vitamin K for you baby and a screening test known as the newborn blood spot. Some families will continue to see the midwife until 28 days after your baby’s birth, for these families they will also start to see their health visitor between 10 and 14 days and the health visitor and midwife may visit together to help support you to have a smooth transition from midwifery services to health visiting.

Health Visiting

Our health visiting teams work with mothers and fathers, their families, and community groups to promote the health and wellbeing of children and reduce inequalities from the antenatal period until your child starts school. 

Health visitors are trained nurses or midwives who have undertaken additional training in community public health nursing. You may meet a health visitor while you are still pregnant. 10-14 days after your baby is born your health visitor will visit to see you and your baby. You can ask them any questions you have and they will also provide information for you on the following topics:

  • Infant feeding – our health visiting teams are all trained to UNICEF Baby Friendly Initiative standards for breast and artificial (formula) feeding
  • Safe sleep for your baby
  • Immunisations
  • Vitamin D
  • Your emotional health and wellbeing
  • How to access the health visiting service

The health visiting service work with all families until their child starts school and will deliver key health and development assessments for your baby at 6-8 weeks, 8-12 months and 2-2.5 years. They are also available to you if anything comes up between these times. Our role is to help parents learn and develop the skills required to bring up their children giving the new generation the best possible start in life.

You can find details about your local team and how to contact them on the 'I'm concerned who can I talk to' section below or in the local resources pages.

New and expectant parents and carers

You can find helpful information and resources to support you prepare for your new baby and in those first few months on our New baby and parent resource page.

New baby review

When your baby is between 10 and 14 days old a health visitor will see you and your baby to complete the New baby review. This is an opportunity for you to ask any questions and for your health visitor to meet your new baby. You and your baby will have a health visitor until your child starts school so it's important to know what support they can offer you and your family. You can access our new parent and baby resource pack here.

The 6 week health visiting contact

When your baby is 6 weeks old the health visiting team will see you both again. This contact is another chance for you to ask any questions, you will also be given advice and support around infant feeding and we will ask you a few questions about your emotional health and well-being to help us to identify if you need help during this time. This is because we know that pregnancy and the period after childbirth are significant times of change in a person’s life and it is common for women and their partners to experience many different emotions during this time. If you need help before your 6 week health visiting appointment please contact your health visitor or GP.

You can also access our New Baby, New Feelings resources here

Your GP will also arrange to see you between 6-8 weeks and will complete your baby's growth and health review. They will also arrange for you to have your immunisations with your GP Practice Nurse. 

One year health review

Your baby will have been developing lots of new skills during their first year and the One year health review is a chance for you to meet with your health visiting team to see how your baby is developing in each of the Ages and Stages ASQ five developmental areas:

  • Communication - talking
  • Gross fine motor skills - movement
  • Fine motor skills - hand skills 
  • Problem solving
  • Social and Emotional - emotions, behaviour and play

Find out more about the ASQ here.

This review is designed to pick up any concerns you have about your baby's health and development and to ensure that if you or your baby need any support from other services we can support you to access these. Even if you don't have any concerns about your baby's health and development it's important to have this review as we will review your child’s health, development and growth and will also provide age related information for you and your baby.

To book your baby’s One year health review please contact your local health visiting team – contact details are available at – find your local health visiting team link.

Groups 

Health visiting teams run groups for parents and carers. See our local resources information for details of what’s available in your area.

Find your local HV here.

Children’s centre are places where families with children under 5 years can go to meet other parents and carers in their community.

Each children’s centre is slightly different but you will often find groups and activities, midwife and health visiting appointments, baby clinics, infant feeding support and parenting courses. 

Children’s centres are welcoming places where you can go if you need some extra support. They are experts in helping you find the support you need.

You can find your local children’s centre on your local authority website there is a link to this page on the Local resources section of our website.

If you're concerned about yourself or your baby please contact your health visiting team. We are available to help and support in many different ways and can support you to access other services in the local community.

Richmond 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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