The team is a County wide service and covers the whole of Suffolk.

We have two bases, one located in Ipswich and the other in Bury St Edmunds with the Ipswich team covering the East of the County and the Bury team the West of the County, although both teams will work across the County.

The team will be as flexible as possible and will see families in a setting that is most suitable to them such as schools and in their own homes and allows families the choice regarding where they would like to receive their care.

To access the service, a referral can be made by any professional who can provide a summary of the child/young person's clinical nursing needs; this can be telephoned through to the team if urgent. A wide variety of nursing needs are catered for such as gastrostomy care, wound care, administration of medications and many other nursing procedures that can safely be carried out outside of the hospital environment. Each referral is considered by a qualified children’s nurse who will be able to determine whether access into the service is appropriate. Once the referral has been received contact will be made with the family. If the referral is urgent then contact will be made on the same working day but all families will be contacted within 48 hours. Initial contact is most likely to be by telephone to arrange an appointment for the first visit. During the first visit a full nursing assessment will be carried out and a care plan will be developed in full consultation with the family and child/young person. If necessary an interpreter can be used and it is possible to have care plans written in different languages.

The Community Children's Nursing Team provides a service as part of Integrated Community Paediatric Services.  There is more information about the other services available on Suffolk Infolink.