24 May 2018

Meeting the Community Children's Nursing Team in Hillingdon

They are an unsung but important part of Hillingdon's community nursing provision.

Made up of 14 staff- only two of whom are full-timers - the Community Children's Nurses have seen more than 10,000 children to date in this calendar year; a mixture of new cases and existing charges.

Their remit is to provide care and support across the board to children with long term, acute or chronic conditions as long as they have a nursing need and a GP in the borough.

This isn't just a job; it's a vocation.

Community children's nurse Alison Williams said: "It's the variety of things we do that's so good about what we do. It could be training one minute, SATS on a cardiac baby the next or a baby on oxygen, or blood pressures. It just so varied and also we do talks with the students."

Team leader Diane Hart adds: "You build up a relationship with families and the children, especially if it's long term. I've known children since they were a year old and I'm meeting them in the streets and they've got their own children."

An important part of its role now is to provide Epilepsy Awareness training to staff in schools or charities, or to carers.

A clinical audit of this part of its work concluded: "The training sessions have had a positive impact on the care provided to children who have seizures and may indeed have been diagnosed with Epilepsy; as after attending a training session their carers are more knowledgeable and able to provide effective emergency care when required." 

One of the charities to benefit from training was Hillingdon Autistic Care and Support (HACS), 23 of whose staff recently received Epilepsy Awareness training from the team.

Alison said: "I went twice over a couple of days as they had volunteers doing sessions with children and young people. We have a presentation that we share with them, an emergency medication leaflet and explain how they give the medication. It's basically seeing what their concerns are, trying to answer their questions and making sure they know what to do if a child has an epileptic seizure.

"Usually we will say to people that if they want a refresher in a year to just let us know. Or if they get somebody who's a complex case or they are worried about a child then they can always come back to us."

She added: "I love this job because it's helping people and trying to give them a bit of reassurance and strategies of how to cope when their child is having a seizure, while acknowledging that it's stressful."

Editors' notes

Photo of Alison Williams and Diane Hart is available

Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust
Stephenson House, 75 Hampstead Road, London NW1 2PL
Tel: 020 3214 5756 e-mail:communications.cnwl@nhs.net