School Nurse Drop-in Sessions (primary and secondary pupils)
Every Thursday, 3.00pm – 5.00pm (including school holidays)
Health Visiting Hub, 1st floor, St Catherine’s Health Centre, Derby Road, Birkenhead CH42 OLQ
Who we are
Our School Nursing Service provides support for a seamless transition from health visitors to school nurses. It’s led by specialist public health nurses, qualified nurses and screeners.
Our vision is to enable Wirral’s children, young people and families to access services quickly in order to be secure, healthy, have fun and achieve their full potential.
What we do
Our service supports children and young people aged 5 – 19 in primary and secondary schools and home educated children, as well as their families and carers. Support is also provided to schools and alternative education providers – every school has a named school nurse.
Our team works in partnership with schools and other professionals to keep children healthy, happy and safe. They promote health and wellbeing, as well as offering the childhood vaccination programme.
We work in collaboration with the Local Authority, schools, GPs youth services and many other community services to support the needs of children, young people and their families.
The service is confidential, non-judgmental and inclusive and treats all children and young people with dignity, respecting gender, sexual orientation, age, physical or mental health abilities, religion, culture, social background and lifestyle choices.
School nurses work across four teams and can be contacted on 0151 514 0219.
Our service offers individual, holistic care and if we are unable to meet the needs of children and young people we will try and find someone who can. Our team has a duty of care to share information safely with appropriate services if we felt children and young people were at risk.
What we offer
- school entry health and well-being checks – reception and year 7
- vision and hearing screenings for all reception aged children
- height and weight monitoring in reception and year 6 (National Child Measurement Programme)
- health promotion and education
- advice and support
- school age vaccinations programme
- sign posting and referrals into other services
- safeguarding support
- promoting the welfare of children and young people
- weekly drop in sessions
- support, advice and guidance to other professionals and parents on a variety of topics to do with health and wellbeing
Additional and targeted support includes:
- contributing to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people
- following up of attendances at Accident and Emergency Departments
- supporting children and young people with additional health needs
- emotional health and wellbeing support
- following up school absences due to health needs
- support around Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and Autism Spectrum Disorder support
- partnership working with other organisations such as Children’s and Young Peoples Services, private and voluntary organisations
- health assessments and referrals for Looked After Children and vulnerable children
- safeguarding support for vulnerable children and young people including children and young people who have special needs and who have been excluded from mainstream education
- first level support and referrals in child and adolescent mental health issues
- targeted support for vulnerable children from our Teenage Teen
Special school nursing
Children with special/complex needs
Our school nurses in specialist schools are the first point of contact for health related issues for children and families. They work closely with a number of professionals in health, social care and education and actively support clinical interventions for children and young people with particular health needs eg intermittent catheterisation, gastrostomy feeding and providing regular training in managing common medical conditions, for example epilepsy, diabetes, anaphylaxis, asthma and emergency medications is a key requirement of the role.
The special school nursing team provides direct nursing care to children aged 2-19 years within the four Schools for Severe Learning Difficulties (SLD).
- Elleray Park School, Elleray Park Road, Wallasey CH45 0LH (primary)
- Foxfield, New Hey Road, Woodchurch CH49 5LF (secondary)
- Meadowside, Pool Lane, Wirral CH49 5LA (secondary)
- Stanley School, Greenbank Drive, Pensby CH61 5UE (primary)
The School Nursing Service is part of Wirral’s 0-19+ Service.
