Introduction

• We work with children with complex healthcare conditions needing nursing support.
• We receive our referrals via a hospital, a consultant or similar professionals.
• If your care is delivered from outside of Somerset, we will ask for a referral to a local Paediatrician prior to the allocation of a nurse.
• Once the referral is accepted the nurse will contact you and arrange a visit.

The Community Children’s Nursing Service supports children and young people with complex healthcare needs across a wide range of conditions and diseases. Usually, these conditions are complex requiring extra support such as training or close monitoring outside of the hospital, alongside sourcing medical equipment for use in your home. Children and young people sometimes need intensive support with frequent contact and visits. However, this level of support can be variable and dependent on an assessment of need and your own requirements. Your nurse should work with you to find the level of support which suits you.

What to expect

You can expect us:

• To work alongside you and your family not only at home but in schools and other settings
• To help you and your child become experts in your child’s condition and management
• To work with you in reducing or preventing hospital admission
• Work closely with other professionals to ensure you don’t have to repeat your story and to make sure we all have the same information

If you feel you would benefit from the service, you can have a chat with your hospital doctor in the first instances. We do not take direct referrals from families, GPs or other professionals but are always willing to talk to perspective families to help support a referral process if it’s felt right for you. Sometimes we will link with other professionals to gain further information to help make the referral easier and more accurate.

In some rare cases, your Community Nurse support will come from a Regional Nurse rather than the local team due to the specialist nature of the condition that the individual child has.

To ensure we can deliver safe care to all the children and young people under the care of the Community Children’s Nursing Service, it is useful to have a local paediatrician or a similar specialist involved in their care. Occasional, however, your care may come via another place such as Bristol or London even. In such instances, we will work with them to ensure there is a clear communication channel in place but will also ask them to refer to a local paediatrician so that in emergencies we have local medical support.

As your young person approaches transition, we will work with our adult colleagues to make the process as smooth as possible for those needing ongoing services.