Community Children’s Nursing
The Community Children’s Nursing service provides holistic care to sick children by providing nursing care in the community setting, empowering and enabling the child, family/carers’ to become more competent in the management of the child’s condition, thereby reducing the need for hospital admissions or enabling early discharge.
The Community Children’s Nurses provide nursing care to children and young people with a life-limiting, life-threatening condition, complex disability, long-term conditions such as asthma, eczema or allergies as well as palliative and end-of-life care. The service also provides short-term nursing care to sick children to enable early discharge from hospital.
Other services provided include:
Direct nursing care to all children and young people aged 0 -18 years (19 years if attending a special school) in the borough of Walsall
Assessment, intervention, advice and guidance to children and their families
High levels of skilled nursing care for children with complex conditions who require medication, treatment and technology-dependent care within a community setting and in specific schools in Walsall.
The Community Children’s Nursing teams’ objectives are:
To empower and enable children and their carers to become more competent in the management of their child’s condition, thereby reducing the need for hospital admissions and enabling early discharge into the community
To be the first contact point for case-managed children, to co-ordinate appropriate healthcare and support, to meet the child’s holistic needs
To improve quality of life of children and young people and reduce the risk of acute episodes
To ensure the early recognition or change of condition facilitating early interventions, providing least intensive care in the lease intensive setting
To provide ongoing preventive care and support at a time and in a venue of client choice
To liaise with hospital staff involved in care following admissions, informing them of the child’s usual status and aiming to reduce length of stay
To co-ordinate care services, delivered in the community, to meet the needs of the child and family through the Lead Professional role.
To monitor the progress of children with long term conditions promoting the healthiest possible lifestyle and offering them and their parents/carers appropriate education about their condition.
To provide support and information to children and their carers to facilitate the best quality of life for the child and promote early detection of change
To act as an advocate for the needs and wishes of the child and family and work to ensure informed consent and involvement in decision making
To give or signpost advice and information on a range of health issues, liaising with other organisations, seeking to empower and enable independence of children and their families/carers
To contribute to the learning experience of student nurses and other healthcare professionals
To promote and adapt partnership working with agencies external to healthcare
To ensure that the appropriate referral pathways are made
To deliver culturally appropriate services
To leave written information with the family detailing the type of services that are offered and what they can expect from the service
To support children through key stages of transition and support young people in their transition to adult services
To provide appropriate supplies and equipment for children who are technology dependent
To meet the needs of children, families and carers in issues surrounding end of life care, death and bereavement
Monday to Friday, 8am – 8pm
Weekends/bank holidays, 8am – 4pm
Ward 21, Community Children’s Office
Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust
Moat Road
Walsall
West Midlands
WS2 9PS
Service lead
Jenny Horobin, Team Leader, Community Children’s Nursing Team
01922 603814
Email: jennifer.horobin@walsallhealthcare.nhs.uk
Referrals are from Walsall Healthcare professionals.