Services for Children and Young People with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities
Blackburn with Darwen’s Local Offer
Lancashire’s Health Services
1.Name of the service and what the service providesEast Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust – General Paediatrics
We provide care for children and young people up to 16 years of age.
Our core inpatient provision is located at the Royal Blackburn hospital, with 51 beds (including 3 high dependency beds) and a Children’s Observation and Assessment Unit (15 beds).
We have a daycase facility on ward 27 and a Children’s Minor Illness Unit at the Burnley General Hospital site.
We have children’s outpatient provision across the catchment area, including Blackburn, Burnley, Accrington, Clitheroe Pendle and Rossendale and some outreach clinics to the boundaries of our catchment.
Our acute service also includes sub-specialist Children’s services for a range of complex and chronic needs, including
- Cystic Fibrosis
- Diabetes
- Haematology
- Nephrology
- Cardiology
- Complex needs
- Allergy
- Respiratory care
- Neurodisability and developmental delay
- Paediatric oncology (lower tier service only – level 1 POSCU)
- Paediatric Diabetes
- Children’s Community Nursing
- Paediatric Respiratory Care
- Paediatric Epilepsy
- Children’s Community Assisted Ventilation Services (Blackburn with Darwen only)
- Safeguarding Children
2.Address and contact details and area covered
The Trust service website can be found at: and this includes all our key contact details by service area/department – search Paediatrics or Children’s.
Key contacts are provided below:
Children’s Ward – Blackburn Hospital – Tel 01254 732839 (side A), Tel 732765 (side B) 735900 (side C)
Children’s Observation & Assessment Unit, Blackburn Hospital – Tel 01254 732624
Children’s Minor Illness Unit, Burnley General Hospital – Tel 01282 804645
Children’s Daycase Unit – Ward 27, Burnley General Hospital – Tel 01282 804026
Children’s Outpatient Departments – Burnley – Tel 01282 804837/ Blackburn Tel 01254 731739
Children’s Diabetes Team – Tel 01254 732558
Children’s Respiratory Care Team – Tel 01254 732336
Children’s Community Nursing Team – Tel 01254 732843
Children’s Community Assisted Vent Team – Tel 01254 732981
Service Management Team – Tel 01282 803072
3.The service is for
The service is available for children up to the age of 16 years andprovides inpatient and outpatient provision for the following;
- General illness /problems –acute or chronic
- Cystic Fibrosis
- Diabetes
- Haematology
- Rheumatology
- Endocrinology
- Nephrology
- Cardiology
- Complex needs
- Allergy
- Respiratory care
- Neurodisability and developmental delay
- Paediatric oncology (lower tier service only – level 1 Paediatric Shared Care Oncology Unit -POSCU)
4.Accessing the Service
Elective outpatient Care:
The outpatient service can be accessed by a process of referral through Choose and Book from GPs. The outpatient service does not accept self-referrals.
The service can be accessed free of charge and waiting lists for initial appointments are currently within 8 weeks.
Referrals other than from health need to be with an open and active Common Assessment Framework (CAF) to ensure that early intervention and prevention has been addressed before referral.
Emergency Care:
We provide a 24/7 service at the Royal Blackburn Hospital site for emergency care.
For emergency care, the service is accessed via ambulance, Emergency Department or Urgent Care Centre referrals or urgent direct GP referral. Patients access our service through either the Children’s Observation and Assessment Unit (COAU) at the Royal Blackburn Hospital or the Children’s Minor Illness Unit (CMIU) at the Burnley General Hospital Site for assessment and observation and then may be admitted to our Children’s Ward.
Whilst patients attend the ED or UCCs, the Children’s Units are not ‘walk in’ and are accessed as described above.
5.Decision making processes used to determine who is eligible to receive a service.
Outpatient care- The child or young person will be eligible to receive the service if they are aged 16 or below and upon triage our consultants identify that we can provide assessment/care of their symptoms. All referrals are ‘triaged’ by the consultant team and either appointed to the service or referred on to the most appropriate agency. The referring practitioner is advised of outcome if the referral is not accepted, otherwise an appointment will be arranged with family.
Emergency care – All presentations/referrals are triaged either on telephone or on admission. Children attend our COAU or CMIU for initial triage, assessment and observation. The COAU based at the Royal Blackburn Hospital is 24/7. The Burnley General Hospital CMIU is open extended days, 7 days per week.
6.Methods of communication with service users/patients and how they are involved in decision making/planning.
We provide copy letters of all our consultations to the GP and to the family/carer of a child/young person attending the service.
The service encourages Children and Young People and their families and or carers to voice their views about the service either directly to the practitioner involved in delivering their care, contacting the Matron or Directorate manager or through East Lancashire Hospitals PALS or the Trust’s formal complaints procedure.
Other methods of communication include:
- Suggestion box in the waiting room
- Trust website and emails to the service
- Service user information leaflets
- Young people friendly materials and magazines in all waiting rooms.
- Phone calls and meetings with families
- CHI feedback forms
The use of bilingual interpreters as appropriate for families whose first language is not English can be arranged, as can British sign language or other requests.
7.Service Accessibility.
Services are provided in a variety of settings, both within the hospital sites and within the community. This involves use of schools, health centres, children’s centres and young people’s homes as well as a number of different venues that young people may request.
All the health and local authority provision used is wheelchair accessible and have disabled toilet facilities.
For young people who present to A&E, they may be admitted to our children’s observation and assessment units (one at Burnley General Hospital for minor illness and one at Royal Blackburn Hospital for all), or may be admitted to the Children’s ward and for an appropriate assessment and care to take place.
8.Workforce Skills and Training
The team carries out all mandatory training and have an annual personal development review with identifies training needs.
The team have specialist training according to their role and national guidelines/standards.
9.Contacts for further information
The first point of contact for the parent/carer or child/young person to discuss something about their care would be to the practitioner involved in delivering their care. If the service user has any urgent worries or urgent concerns, they are able to call the central teams on numbers identified above.
Once referred, the appropriate team will consider whether the child or young person will benefit from the service. The referrer will also be able to contact the service to discuss whether the child or young would benefit from service support.
Health Visitors, School Nurses, GPs, other CAMHS teams and other professional therapies will be involved in providing support for interventions for children and young people.
10.Feedback
Theservice is keen to receive feedback about the service.
- Compliments: The service is happy to hear if you have been pleased and satisfied with the service and treatment provided. We like to ‘Share to Care’ amongst our teams too to roll out good practice. If you wish to send a compliment to any of the staff or services please do so. It gives valuable feedback and acknowledges the positive work that is carried out. You can send a card or letter or ask a member of staff for a compliments form.
- Resolving problems: The service wants everyone to receive the highest standard of care. If you feel this has not been achieved then let the service know. Your comments and complaints can help the service to improve.Some problems can be dealt with on the spot by the staff providing the care. Please contact the practitioner involved in your care, or the service lead. Alternatively contact switchboard on 01254 263555 and ask to speak to the Matron or Directorate Manager for Children’s Services.
- Making a complaint: If your problem cannot be settled informally by talking to a member of staff then you may wish to make a complaint. Please remember that your complaint will be treated in confidence, details will not be filed in your medical records and it will not affect your treatment in any way.There are several ways for you to make a complaint. You can ask the staff you see to provide you with a form to complete or you can write, email or phone the PALs Service or the Complaints team. This information is provided below:
Complaints Team : Telephone 01254 733700 or email or write to Customer Relations Team, Park View Offices, Royal Blackburn Hospital, Haslingden Road, Blackburn BB2 3HH.
1