Stockport children’s services offer lockdown lifeline

A review of children’s services by the Department for Education (DfE) has found Stockport NHS Foundation Trust is performing extremely well on providing care for those with special needs during the Covid-19 pandemic. The services were particularly praised for their help and advice phone line.

Stockport NHS health visiting and school nursing teams were amongst the first in the country to set up a helpline for concerned parents during the lockdown, and have now received national recognition for its success through a SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) review by the DfE.

The helpline was set up by health visiting and school nursing teams very early during the pandemic on March 23^rd. The line was set up to meet the concerns of parents now that outpatient appointments and routine visits from children’s services in Stockport have been limited.

The advice line is answered by qualified health visitors, and with the help of recently improved telecommunications at the trust, calls can be swiftly transferred to the most appropriate staff member best placed to respond to the query. It has been receiving around 10-15 calls a day, with over 500 responded to so far.

Most calls are from patients directly wanting advice regarding their children on a range of topics including feeding concerns, minor illnesses, immunisations or concerns on their child’s development. The line number has been promoted with the help of partners in health and social care as well as the trust’s own social media.

While many staff at the trust have been redeployed towards support for Covid-19 patients, it has been ensured that resources for other patients and service users are made available. There were already plans to introduce a support line of this kind for parents, but the urgency of the pandemic has meant that it has been set up sooner with the support of the trust’s IT, telecommunications and performance teams.

Angela Meldrum, Healthy Child Quality Assurance and Governance Lead for community services from Stockport NHS Foundation Trust said:

Our health visiting and school nursing services can’t have as many face-to-face meetings with our patients and parents at the moment, but we are still there to provide the support they need. The helpline has been a really useful way of providing parents and carers with information and advice, as well as reassurance at a time when so many feel worried or isolated. Getting the line up and working so swiftly has been a real team effort and I’d like to thank all my colleagues who have made it possible.”

Families with children aged 0-16 can call the advice line on 0161 835 6789 9:00am – 5:00pm Monday – Friday for all aspects of child health, development and parenting.

Photo shows the helpline in action with Jacqui Rousseau, Parenting Team Leader in the foreground.