"Health visiting and school nursing"

I have 2 children who have been under the Doncaster Health Visitors and I have been fortunate enough to have the same one throughout both children's care. I can not express how grateful I am to our health visitor for her commitment, compassionate approach and focused desire to ensure we have support as a family.

She never wavers and is always there to ensure as a family unit we have support in place and always acts within our best interests. She is clear what her limitations are as a Health Visitor (my eldest has other support needs) and will signpost us accordingly as well as follow up what she can.

I can confidently say that our family would have likely reached breaking point if it wasn’t for having her there as a supportive ear.

My eldest who is no longer under the 0-5 service due to age has experienced a huge spiral of his presentation, with rapid deteriorate in his wellbeing, heightened agitation, poor emotional regulation, harm to self and others and regression.

Due to his age I contacted school nursing for support and guidance of how to try and get some help as a family… I spoke to SPOC, where my feelings weren’t validated at all and no apparent recognition for how bad a situation we are currently in.

I have been told I would receive a call but it could take 5 working days. This time scale is still ongoing and we are on day 4 morning now and yet to get a call. I understand that this is due to their own pressures but we were heading to crisis point so I reached out to the health visitors due to the direct impact my eldest’s presentation is having on my baby due to risk and I have gained support and signposting this way.

I know the service offer is different for school nursing to health visiting and they can’t respond as quickly, however I feel that there should be consideration to priority based upon risk and this could have been triaged better. As I know it’s unlikely school nursing could offer support but to have this confirmed would have been helpful. 

In respect to our health visitor, I’m sure we as a family have caused her many hours of additional work, due to needing referrals submitting, observations and listening to my worries, however I have appreciated this more than she would ever realise, it’s been an absolute life line.

Thank you for everything