Children's community nursing team
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We are a team of nurses who are trained to care for sick children. We do most of our work in the child’s home or in community settings such as clinics, schools and nurseries across South and West Hertfordshire. We work closely with paediatrics at Watford General Hospital, as well as specialist hospitals such as Great Ormond Street. The service is provided for all children age 0 to 18 years (extending to 19 years if in attendance at a Special School). The service operates 8am to 6pm, seven days a week and extends to 24-hour care when required, to support a child at the end of life.
Our aim is to reduce the impact of childhood illness and reduce the need for hospital admissions. When hospital admission is needed, we work to reduce the length of stay whenever possible. The nurses support children with long term conditions such as childhood cancer and see children who require short term care for example, following surgery. The nurses are skilled in managing a wide range of complex conditions, which allows the child to spend as much time as possible at home with their family.
Location
- Peace Children’s Centre, Peace Prospect, Watford, WD17 3EW
- The Marlowes Health and Wellbeing Centre, 39-41 Marlowes, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, HP1 1LD
- St Albans Health and Wellbeing Centre, Civic Centre, St Peter’s Street, St Albans, Hertfordshire, AL1 3JE
Contact the service
Tel: 01923 470680 (Option 1), Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm
Single Point of Contact (SPOC): 01707 710077, Monday to Sunday, 8 am to 6pm
Email: ccnteam@nhs.net
Making a referral
We welcome referrals from healthcare professionals — please call the Single Point of Contact to discuss and ensure suitability to our service. We triage all referrals on the day of receipt. If within Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust, an electronic referral can be made via SystmOne.
The Children's Community Nursing Services referral form is available via our referral portal.
Urgent Care Pathways
We see urgent care pathways for bronchiolitis (0-2 years), febrile child (0-5 years), asthma (2-16 years) and gastroenteritis. We accept referrals for children and young people within a green or amber scoring. We aim to follow up with a telephone call or face to face visit within 24 hours, depending on the requirement from the referring clinician.
The Children's Community Nursing Services urgent referral form is available via our referral portal.
Virtual Hospital
We are working in partnership with Watford General Hospital to ambulate patients out of hospital while on IV Ceftriaxone and see them within our Virtual Hospital at the Peace Children's Centre. We attend the virtual ward round with the medical and nursing team every morning to discuss the patients on the Virtual Hospital caseload.
Paediatric Phlebotomy Service (Rainbow)
A Paediatric Phlebotomy Service runs from Peace Children’s Centre for children aged 0-12 years old for blood referrals from GPs or consultants from West Herts Teaching Hospital Trust. A form must be provided and brought to clinic otherwise we will not be able to complete the blood test. Please book online via Swiftqueue.
Useful information
Patient experience
If you would like to share your story, please contact the Patient Experience team on 01707 388036 or email hct.patientexperienceteam@nhs.net
We would also love to hear about your experience on our service, please complete a survey by clicking here.
