Special School Nurses support children, families and education staff through competencies in Paediatrics, Learning Disabilities and Public School Health Nursing.

Nurses are linked to special schools however, they are not always available on set days as they are locality workers.

The Special School Nursing service supports the health care needs of children and young people attending one of 7 Worcestershire Special Schools which are provided through two locality bases.

Special School Nurses are a term-time only service and work between 09.00 and 15.00 five days per week for routine only enquiries. If you contact the locality bases and a Special School Nurse is not available, you can leave a message and this will be answered as soon as is possible.

Services provided by Special School Nurses may include:

• Routine health surveillance and health promotion in Special Schools, contributing to the Healthy Schools agenda.
• Care planning and supporting clinical assessments and interventions in school for individual children.
• Health intervention training for education staff, in skills required to meet child’s needs (such as epilepsy care and administering medications).
• Advice and assistance in responding to first aid/emergency situations.
• Looked After Child health assessments. 
• Promoting continence/providing continence support, with six monthly re-assessments.
• Sexual health and staying safe for vulnerable young people.
• Support transition to adult services.

The Special School Nursing service provides support to Special Schools to enable the school to meet the holistic care needs of children and young people when attending school. Although this is primarily through training and supporting school staff, all children can access direct support and advice from the Special School Nurse if they choose. This can be alone or with a parent or carer present. 

The Special School Nurse will assess the health care needs of children and young people on school entry. They will provide training to school staff to ensure school staff can provide care needs safely within the school setting. This will support the child or young person to achieve their full potential in both education and wellbeing. The team also provides Health Education to promote healthy lifestyles.

The service is managed by the Team Lead for Special School Nursing. All Nurses are Registered professionals in either:

• Registered Learning Disability
• Registered  Children’s Nurse
• Registered General Nurse

Professionals can refer to the service by emailing the generic email address: whcnhs.ssn@nhs.net

Children and young people or parents can arrange to see their Special School Nurse by any of the following ways:

• Visiting the Nurse’s office within school to arrange a time and place
• Asking school staff to arrange a suitable time and place
• E-mail: whcnhs.ssn@nhs.net
• Calling the relevant school office number or locality base number

Special School Nurses work closely with other Health professionals and Children’s Social Care to ensure that all Children and Young People within our area are safe and cared for. If the Special School Nurse has any concerns about a child or young person, they will aim to discuss this with parents/carers and seek consent to discuss with other professionals.

If you child has been in hospital it is important you discuss their return to school with medical staff before leaving the ward and also school staff to be sure your child will be safe at school. If additional training will be needed for school staff this will take time to arrange with the Special School Nurse.