Health visitors are registered nurses or midwives with a specialist qualification in public health. We provide community health visiting services to all families in Lambeth and Southwark who have children under the age of five years old.
Health visitors help to give every baby the best start in life, they support hundreds of families every week. They provide extra support for families who may need it, build on families strengths and connect them to the right support in Lambeth and Southwark. Health visitors offer a range of services both at home and in child health clinics. They provide health promotion advice on immunisation, breastfeeding, healthy weight gain, introducing solid foods, parenting skills, vitamin D supplements, safe sleeping, parental health and wellbeing, home safety and accident prevention.
Through your journey with our health visiting team you may come into contact with health visitors, community staff nurses, child development workers, health visiting support and development workers and senior nursing assistants. Our staff will see you in your home, at a children's centre, health centre or GP practice.
There are several key stages in your child’s life when the health visiting service will contact you for an appointment:
The health visiting service has an integral role in safeguarding children. We work in partnership with GPs and other healthcare professionals, social workers, children’s centre staff and voluntary agencies to support families with children under five.
As we are part of a teaching hospital, students supervised by qualified staff might be involved in your care. We will let you know beforehand if a student will be present at your appointment. Please tell us if you do not want them to be present or involved. We will always respect your wishes.
Within our health visiting service, we have teams that deliver additional support for families these are the complex needs health visiting team, the health visiting support and development team and the early intervention health visiting team.
Our teams
The complex needs health visitors provide a specialist service supporting children under the age of five years with complex health and developmental needs.
The team support families who have children with complex health needs through the process of diagnosis, in implementing therapy programmes, developing strong relationships with children with disabilities and discussing developmental concerns.
The team will provide specific support for these families around:
- sleep routines
- feeding and nutrition
- behaviour management
- delivering training/advice for professionals/colleagues and multi-disciplinary team
Referrals
Download the referral form (MS Word document 145KB)
All referrals must consider the required criteria (including reason for referral and any details from the initial assessment) and must be sent via email to:
gst-tr.complexneedshealthvisiting@nhs.net
Please note that these are specialist health visiting services and referrals are considered from healthcare professionals only. Self-referrals are not accepted.
The health visiting support and development workers promote health and wellbeing for children under the age of five years old and their families. They form part of the universal health visiting service. The team provides individual support and advice over a number of planned sessions with families. The team accept referrals where children present with behavioural or developmental issues and target support at families who use the emergency department as their first line of primary care for their children. The team will work with families to address the following topics:
- difficult mealtimes
- nutrition
- dental concerns
- sleep routines
- frequent emergency department attendance
- behaviour concerns
- toilet training
Referrals
Download the referral form (MS Word document 64KB)
All referrals must consider the required criteria (including reason for referral and any details from the initial assessment) and must be sent via email to:
gst-tr.HVsupportanddevelopmentworker@nhs.net
Please note that these are specialist health visiting services and referrals are considered from healthcare professionals only. Self-referrals are not accepted.
HENRY is a licensed programme that can deliver a wide range of support for families including workshops, programmes, resources and online help. The programme supports parents and carers with whole-family nutrition, parenting skills, physical activity and emotional wellbeing.
The health visiting support and development workers will deliver eight-week HENRY healthy families: right from the start programmes to families with children under the age of five years old. They will also deliver standalone subject-specific workshops to support a healthy start in life.
Workshop topics include starting solids, fussy eating, let’s get active, healthy teeth, healthy drinks for young children and eating well for less.
We also run the 8-week Healthy families: right from the start programme.
Read further details about dates and times of our standalone workshops and Healthy families: right from the start programme and details of how to book.
Our early intervention health visiting service provides intensive support to families with additional support needs during and after pregnancy to improve health outcomes and safeguard children. They help parents to be the best they can be in order to meet the physical, social and emotional needs of their child.
Our early intervention health visiting service is available for families of children under two years of age who require additional support due to any of the following criteria:
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young parents aged 19 and under
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significant mental health conditions
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domestic violence and abuse
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alcohol and substance misuse
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parent with a learning disability or complex health needs
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parental history of safeguarding issues
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concealed pregnancies.
Children can be seen by this service until their fifth birthday as long as they continue to meet the necessary criteria.
Referrals
Download the referral form (MS Word document 81KB)
All referrals must consider the required criteria (including reason for referral and any details from the initial assessment) and must be sent via email to:
gst-tr.earlyinterventionhealthvisitingservice@nhs.net
Please note that these are specialist health visiting services and referrals are considered from healthcare professionals only. Self-referrals are not accepted.