What is the compass service?
Being in hospital can be a worrying time for children and their families. It can be confusing when lots of different health professionals are involved in caring for your child.
We help to bring all your child’s care together. We work with your child's medical teams so everyone communicates well and knows what is happening.
Our team includes a general paediatric (children's) consultant, clinical nurse specialists, and a family support worker. We also work closely with the discharge coordinator.
The compass service was created in response to family feedback to support children and young people who need to be cared for by many different medical teams. Because we can only help a small number of families, the teams decide which patients would benefit most.
Sometimes we do a one-off check and give advice to the lead medical teams and tell them about other ways families could be supported. Other times, we stay involved throughout the whole hospital stay and help children move from hospital to home.
We also work with community and local hospital teams to help decide what care needs to happen in hospital, and what can be done closer to home, or at home.
Our compass information booklet (3.8MB) has more information about how we can help and tips for your child's hospital journey.
What to expect
We'll make sure we communicate with you regularly.
We'll give you a compass booklet. At the end, there is space to write your and your child's goals, worries and questions. We'll talk through these together to help plan your child's care.
We'll talk to different teams in and outside the hospital to help us understand the whole picture. We'll try to give clear and consistent information, but sometimes plans may change or teams may have different opinions. We'll discuss these openly with you.
Sometimes we hold big meetings with all of your child's medical teams to discuss their care. We'll ask you how you would like to be involved. You can choose to join meetings or be updated afterwards.
We'll give you the chance to speak to psychologists about your own experiences. The experience of having a child in hospital can be very difficult, and many families have found this really helpful.
Your child's overall health and development while in hospital are very important to us. We'll check their growth twice a week and keep their immunisation on track. Physiotherapists, speech and language therapists and occupational therapists will help if your child needs support. Evelina London School and the hospital's play specialists will offer social and educational support that suits your child's needs.
We'll help you learn new skills and arrange training sessions with you.
We're at Evelina London Children's Hospital from Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm and can answer questions about your child’s longer-term health plan. If you have urgent concerns outside of these hours, please speak to your child's acute specialist team or general paediatric team.