Children's Services

Looking after the children and young people are a dedicated team of children’s nurses, neonatal nurses, nursery nurses, play specialists and hospital teachers.

Medical care for children and young people is being overseen by 6 Paediatric consultants and their medical team.

Children’s care at West Middlesex is closely linked to local community services through the work of the Children and Young People’s Coordination Board, at which services are jointly planned with health, social care and external agencies.

The Paediatric Unit has strong connections with specialist children’s units such as Great Ormond Street, Chelsea and Westminster, St Mary’s and Hammersmith. The unit regularly has visiting consultants from the tertiary centres and presently provides shared care facilities for haematology and oncology patients.   

Safeguarding of children and young people is given a high profile within the trust. The trust has a named doctor, nurse and midwife for child protection and in addition has a dedicated named nurse for safeguarding and child death review. Close links have been forged with the liaison health visitor and the hospital social work team.

Location

Starlight, Sunshine, Children’s Out-Patients and the Children’s Hospital 2 Home Nursing Team. 3^rd  Floor,  East Wing.

The Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU). 1^ST Floor, Queen Mary Maternity Unit.

Consultants

Dr Anne Davies – Tel 0208 321 5743 (Lead Clinician)

Dr Nicole Fowler – Tel 0208 321 5137

Dr Didi Ratnasinghe – Tel 0208 321 5364

Dr Hashir Ariff – Tel 0208 321 6845

Dr Jayanti Rangasami – Tel 0208 321 6164

Dr Nour El Hadi – Tel 0208 321 6466

Contact

Starlight Ward: 0208 321 5362/6172

Sunshine Day Unit: 0208 321 5851

Children’s Out Patients: 0208 321 5363

Children’s Hospital 2 Home Nursing team: 0208 321 5381

Special Care Baby Unit: 0208 321 5944/5945

Donna Henry, Matron Children’s unit: 0208 321 6862

Siew Koay, Advanced Neonatal Practitioner: 0208 321 6227

Sandra Chester, Senior Nurse Practice Development 0208 321 6862

Shelley Yates, Neonatal Nurse Practice Development 0208 321 5944

Daisy Dholoo Named nurse safeguarding/ Child death review 0208 321 5361

Tonie Neville, General Manager for Women's and Children's Services 0208 321 2580

Referrals

Referrals can be made via choose and book or by letter.

Patient Information

Click here to access our child health information website.

Safeguarding Children Declaration

At West Middlesex University Hospital we are committed to ensuring that all patients including children are cared for in a safe, secure and caring environment.  As a result a number of safeguarding children arrangements are in place.

These include:

• Robust systems which comply with the statutory Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checking requirements.  All staff who come into contact with children are subject to enhanced CRB checks.

• The Trust’s Child Protection policies and systems are up to date and robust and are reviewed on a regular basis.  The hospital’s own Trust Board receives an annual report, which provides the Board with an overview of its role within the wider community safeguarding arrangements as well as ensuring that its own local arrangements are robust including those of its partner organisations such as Ecovert FM, who provide facilities management support to the hospital.    The last review by the Trust Board occurred in February 2009 and the next is scheduled for February 2010. 

• The Trust has a robust audit programme in place to assure that safeguarding systems and processes are working.

• Robust systems are in place to follow-up children who miss outpatient appointments and to flag children for whom there are safeguarding concerns.

• Staff are required to undertake relevant safeguarding training and this is regularly reviewed to ensure it is up to date.  The Trust has a robust training strategy in place with regard to delivering safeguarding training. An annual review of our training arrangements is carried out and we are implementing action plans to ensure the delivery of appropriate training levels across the organisation.

      82% of all staff are up to date on level one training – the target is 80%

      80% of eligible clinical staff are up to date on level two training – the target is    

      80%

      80% of eligible clinical staff are up to date on level three training – the target is

      80%

      The last training review occurred in September 2009 and will be reviewed again in

      September 2010.

• The Trust has named professionals in post who lead on issues in relation to Safeguarding Children.  They are clear about their role, have sufficient time and receive relevant support and training in order for them to carry out their roles effectively.  The following are currently in post:     

• Dr Anne Davies, Named Paediatric Consultant

• Ms Tonie Neville, Named Midwife

• Ms Daisy Dholoo, Named Nurse

• Ms Judy Preston, Named Nurse

• Mrs B.Butler, Matron: CP trainer.

• Ms Shân Jones is the Director lead for Safeguarding Children and is a member of the well established partnership board with other support agencies such as Children Services which is in place to monitor procedures across the Borough.  Ms Jones reports annually to the Trust Board in respect of the Trust’s safeguarding arrangements.

July 2010

Key Achievements

• Children’s Services at West Middlesex achieved a rating of 3  - 'Good' - when it was rigorously assessed by the Health Care Commission as part of the national “Children’s Hospital Services Improvement Review” in 2006. The review assessed us against the National Service Framework for Children and the result places our services in the top 20% of children’s hospital services.
  

• The Special Care Baby Unit was recently favourably appraised by the Thames Regional Perinatal Group Appraisal Committee as a "Well run level 1 service".

Endorsements and patient feedback

“I want to commend the cleanliness of the ward, bathrooms and toys on the children’s ward. The staff always provided service with a smile and often went out of their way to help. An excellent service which had no room for improvement. “  Parent of child on Starlight ward 21/01/06. Name supplied

“With deepest gratitude for your dedication, compassion, professionalism and humanity towards my new granddaughter K , my daughter and myself during a very difficult and stressful period”.  SCBU  thank you card. Name supplied

“Both my husband and I we extremely pleased with the care all three of us received. Everyone from the unit was excellent and had all the time in the world to explain, help and aid with every aspect, especially breast feeding. We can't thank you enough.” SCBU satisfaction survey 2005

We have an ongoing feedback system with our patients/parents through “getting better together” cards and patient forums. We act on the feedback given and have changed many details of our services accordingly e.g. providing hangers for parents to hang their clothes on while having shower, and a catering group, “food for thought” has been set up to discuss and implement changes to the children’s menu as raised in comment above.

This is only a tiny flavour of the feedback we receive. We retain details of all of the feedback we receive and are happy to share on request.

If you would like to give us feedback or comment on your experiences, you can either email Judy Preston, Head of Paediatric Services via judy.preston@wmuh.nhs.uk or use our anonymous feedback form.

Clinics and clinic times

Starlight Ward                                          24-hour

Special Care Baby Unit                              24-hour

Sunshine Unit                                            8.00am – 8.00pm Monday to Friday

Children’s outpatients                                 9.00am - 5.00pm Monday to Friday

Childrens Hospital to Home Nursing service   8.00am - 6.00pm Monday to Friday

Useful links

• www.childrenfirst.nhs.uk

Page last updated November 2011