Children's Community Nursing
The Children's and Young People's Community Nursing Service includes the following teams: Children's Community Nursing Team, Complex Needs Nursing Team, Children's Community Asthma Team, and the Hospital@Home Team.
Children's Community Nursing Team
Children's Community Nursing Team (CNN)
The CCN Team provides specialised nursing care to children aged 0 to 16 years and disabled children aged 0 to 19 years who are registered with a GP in the borough of Lewisham.
The team is made up of qualified children’s nurses with either specialist training or experience in caring for and supporting children and families within their own homes. We also see patients in a variety of other community settings, including schools, nurseries, GP surgeries and respite care facilities.
The aim of the service is to facilitate earlier discharge from hospital and reduce re-admissions and visits to hospital.
Below are just some of the services we offer to children and their families:
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Intravenous, intramuscular and subcutaneous medication administration
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Blood pressure monitoring and blood tests
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Tracheostomy care
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Oxygen therapy and saturation monitoring
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Nasal gastric tubes
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Gastrostomy and jejunostomy tubes
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Wound management
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Specialist oncology care
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Symptom management and end of life support
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Sleep studies
Complex Needs Nursing Team
The Complex Needs Nursing Team cares for children and young people aged 0 to 19 with complex healthcare needs, disabilities and/or life limiting/life-threatening conditions. The service is provided at home, in special and mainstream schools, nurseries and other community settings. We also provide continuing care at home for those with complex medical conditions.
The team is responsible for:
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Integrating and coordinating healthcare for children with long term conditions and disability care needs in the community. We provide healthcare interventions on a daily basis in special schools so that children are able to continue with their education.
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Coordinating care for children with a disability or complex needs with healthcare professionals external to the Trust
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Providing a children’s nurse to provide support for families where their child has complex needs and/or a disability
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Providing a paediatric continence service for children with complex needs.
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Supporting effective and early hospital discharge for children with complex needs. As part of this, the team has a specialist nurse who coordinates continuing care packages to support children requiring extensive nursing care whilst being cared for at home.
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Providing competency-based training for community health support workers.
Community Asthma Team
The Community Asthma Team provides specialist support to children and young people, empowering them and their families to manage their condition, preventing hospital presentations and admissions. The team delivers a number of interventions including telephone help, home visits and review at nurse-led clinics in GP surgeries around the borough of Lewisham. They provide ongoing support, advice, health promotion and training to children, young people and their families where required.
The asthma nurses can:
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Teach you how to use inhalers correctly
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Help you understand the triggers of asthma
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Carry out home visits
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Help you understand and use your child’s asthma action plan
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Help you to recognise when your child is unwell with asthma and what medicine to give
Useful leaflets to download
How to give your inhaler with a mouthpiece spacer
Children's Hospital@Home Team
The Children’s Hospital@Home Team is responsible for supporting early discharge from inpatient wards through improved discharge planning and coordination of care at home. The team works closely with the paediatric team in the children’s Emergency Department to prevent unnecessary hospital admissions. The skilled and experienced paediatric nurses provide rapid response and follow-up care for acute and short-term conditions and minor illnesses to prevent re-attendance to hospital. The team operates a seven day service, 8am to 10pm (8 to 8.30pm weekends and bank holidays) and also covers the CCN caseload at the weekends.
H@H aims are to:
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Provide an integrated service that puts children, and their family, at the centre of care
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Avoid unnecessary hospital admissions
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Reduce length of stay and facilitate early discharge through improved discharge planning, with follow up discharge visits and coordinated care at home
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Provide rapid response, follow up care and prevent hospital admission/re-admissions.
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Provide a service where skilled staff assess and treat children at home, including treatment of acute and short term conditions and minor illnesses
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Provide parental support (health promotion), for example on inhaler technique and childhood minor illnesses.
Referrals
With the exception of Hospital@Home, referrals to the service can be made by hospital staff, GPs, community staff and parents by phone or by emailing a referral form to the team. The referral is given to the relevant team. Patients must have a Lewisham GP.
The Children's Community Nursing service does not offer respite, continuing care or emergency care to families.
Contacting the service
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Lewisham Children's and Young People’s Community Nursing Service |
T: 020 3049 3780 Messages can be left out of hours |
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Hospital@Home Team |
T: On-call mobile: 07775 011661 |