This page provides a best practice example for standard 6 of Facing the Future: Together for child health standards, which outlines the service provided by the South Staffordshire Community Children's Nursing team. The service prevents hospital admissions, facilitates early discharge and provides care at home for children with acute illness.
Standard 5: Each acute general children's service is supported by a community children's nursing service which operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for advice and support, with visits as required depending on the needs of the children using the service.
Model
- The South Staffordshire Community Children's Nursing team covers the west and east areas of South Staffordshire.
- The nursing team supports families caring for children with long term conditions, including supporting families on how to care to for children at home and developing care plans.
- The service provides 24/7 support for children at end of life.
- The service provides eight phlebotomy clinics and four nurse-led constipation clinics per month.
- The west nursing team is staffed by 7.2 whole time nurses, offering a seven day service (09:00-21:00).
- Referrals to the service are made by GPs, hospital based children's services and health visitors. Nurses triage the referrals by telephone assessment and the service aims to contact the family within three hours of receiving the referral (either by home visit or providing advice over the telephone and emailing care plans to patients).
- The rota allows for two staff on shift, operating a buddy system.
Contact for further information
South Staffordshire Service - Community Children's Nursing teams, East and West Locality
Alison Totty, Team leader / Paediatric Advanced Nurse Practitioner - alison.totty@sssft.nhs.uk