Children's Services at St. Oswald's: Information for Health and Social Care Professionals

Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Criteria for Specialist Short Breaks
  3. What can Children/Young People do during their stay?
  4. Assessment and Referral Pathway

1. Introduction

St Oswald’s Children’s Unit providesspecialist residential short breaksfor children and young people who have progressive health conditions that are likely to result in a shortened life expectancy. Not all children with a 'diagnostic label' of a shortening condition will access planned residential short breaks at St Oswald's, as at times local services will meet their needs.

A holistic health and social care assessment of the child's need is required to identify if a referral for this service is appropriate.

2. Criteria for Specialist Short Breaks

Not all children / young people with a ‘diagnostic label’ of a life shortening condition will access planned residential short breaks at St Oswald’s as at times local services will meet their needs. It is the holistic health and social care assessment of a child / young person’s needs that will identify which children / young people have needs that are best matched with the specialist short break service at St Oswald’s at that point in their life. For examplethe criteria are not solely based on the ‘medical diagnosis’ alone.

Summary

  • The child / young person has a progressive health condition that is likely to result in a shortened life expectancy;
  • A holistic health and social care assessment identifies the child / young person’s need for a specialist residential short break service;
  • The child / young person needs supervision from registered children’s nurses;
  • The child / young person’s need for planned residential short breaks cannot be met by other services in his / her local area;
  • Age Range of Birth up to 19 Years;
  • The child lives in Northumberland, Newcastle, Gateshead, North Tyneside, South Tyneside, Sunderland or Durham County (except Darlington).

The multi-disciplinary team at St Oswald’s works in partnership with families and other agencies in the community and hospitals to focus on the ‘quality’ of a child or young person’s life and on support for the whole family. As a specialist service, it also aims to complement and be a part of the range of services that children, young people and their families access in their own area.

The Children’s Unit is approximately three miles from Newcastle City centre and has been designed to deliver high quality family orientated services for children and young people who have complex health and social care needs and physical disabilities. The team aim to provide a safe and comfortable environment in which children / young people, parents and carers are able to have fun, have a break as well as communicate their feelings and support each other. Sometimes this means a family having a break together and sometimes children and young people choose to have a break on their own to ‘chill out’ and meet new friends.

At St Oswald’s we make sure we recruit the right people to meet the needs of each individual child / young person and are able to look after children / young people who have for example, nasogastric or gastrostomy feeding, or who need breathing support or tracheostomy care. We feel it is important to respect children / young people’s privacy so each child / young person has his / her own bedroom and the bedroom is also where a children / young person’s personal care takes place.

As a 24 / 7 specialist service we have the added value of being able to clinically assess children during their regular short break stays. This enables us to contribute to managing a range of symptoms including epilepsy, pain and vomiting. During a stay we can take the opportunity to monitor and review the progress of, for example, new feeding regimes, wheelchairs and physiotherapy programme's. Although we are not a hospital, we have the skills and experience to look after children during times of illness during their short break stays.

3. What can Children/Young People do during their stay?

Children / young people enjoy the many facilities in our purpose built unit as well as in our playground outside. We have arts, crafts and games for all ages, a wet play area, cooking, DVD's, videos, games consoles and computers. The computers are equipped with email and Internet access. We also have an interactive sensory room and a music therapist.

  • ‘This is somewhere I can go by myself and go out with other people rather than doing everything with my parents. It’s hard to explain, but most people see all my problems and back off, not that I can blame them, but people at St Oswald’s can see through all of this and see me as a person and interact with me as though I am normal’;
  • ‘Our son absolutely loves coming to St Oswald’s. It is such a lovely place. It’s a change from home for him and he enjoys mixing with the other children. It is a very special place that combines both fantastic nursing and social care.’

4. Assessment and Referral Pathway

We have worked with partner agencies in social care and health to design the assessment and referral pathways to our service. Having listened to what parents and children / young people tell us, we have designed a model that includes a local entry point in each area for all enquiries / referrals. Also, instead of St Oswald’s setting up separate and more assessment systems, the model maximises on the current statutory sector assessment processes. Therefore it is the local shared health and social care assessment of the needs of the individual child or young person that will identify ‘which’ children, young people and their families need a service at St Oswald’s.

The service will be one part of a child / young person’s package of care and the continued need for the specialist short breaks will be reviewed on a regular basis as part of the statutory Looked after Children (LAC) review process.

Assessment and Referral Pathway

Referrals are not made directly to St Oswald's. There are two Pathway Co-ordinators for Newcastle responsible for the decision making system. These are:

Jocelyn Thompson
Community Matron, Children’s Community Nursing
Phone: 0191 256 3450 / 51
Email:
Isobel Charleton
Team Manager, Social Work Department
Phone: 0191 282 5334
Email

Jocelyn and Isobel work in close partnership with the Pathway Coordinators for St Oswald's.

The pathway for assessment and referral to St Oswalds is detailed below: