Community Children’s Nursing Team
The Children's Community Nursing (CCN) team provides expert nursing care and support for children and young people within the acute and community setting. This includes children and young people with acute, chronic, life-limiting and life-threatening conditions.
The CCN team also provide an end of life care service within the community or at Gully’s Place, working in collaboration with specialist teams within the local or tertiary hospital.
The CCN team are employed by Dorset County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and are based in the Children’s Centre.
The team's mission is to work within a multi-disciplinary environment to deliver excellent and holistic child and family centred care. It aims to allow the child/young person to achieve optimum potential for health and development within their family/community environment, by minimising hospital admission and facilitating early discharge alongside working in partnership with families.
Services we provide
The lists of core and specialist services, where nursing care, advice and support is provided to the child and their family, are given below:
Specialist interventions
- oncology
- palliative
- respiratory conditions
- epilepsy
- complex needs
- sleep studies
- premature babies
- enteral feeding
- oxygen therapy
- long-term ventilation
- cardiac care
Core interventions
- short-term acute illness, requiring nursing intervention
- long-term chronic illness, requiring nursing intervention
- any child/young person with an identified nursing need or has a technology dependence
Referrals
Criteria for referrals
For a child/young person to be referred, they must:
- be 0-17 years of age, resident in West Dorset
- have a GP in West Dorset
- have a paediatric consultant at Dorset County Hospital
- have a recognised specialised paediatric nursing need requiring support, including technology dependence
How to refer
Click here to access a referral form. If you have any queries or require further information, please email ccndorchester@dchft.nhs.uk or phone 01305 254279. Messages are checked daily in office hours.
Any health professional can refer to the CCN team who is involved with the child/young person.
Our team
Team Lead, Zoey Fry
zoey.fry@dchft.nhs.uk
CCN Team Administrator Kimberley Thomas
kimberley.thomas2@dchft.nhs.uk
The CCN service operates Monday to Friday 9am-5pm, except for bank holidays.
Working within the core community team is our specialist nursing CCN’s who work across the community, acute and clinic setting, these include:
- Epilepsy Nurse Specialist (CCN)
- Respiratory Nurse Specialist (CCN)
- Special School Nursing (CCN) (more details below)
CCN Special School Nursing
There are two qualified paediatric nurses who are employed and based at Wyvern Academy who hold a wealth of specialist knowledge, skills and expertise. They work in the special school to support children and young people with complex health needs and provide support and education to school staff. They work in partnership with other agencies to enable the school to meet the complex health needs of the child/young person and their family.
Gully's Place
Gully’s Place is a purpose-designed space, located in the children’s ward (Kingfisher Ward) at Dorset County Hospital.
It has two bedrooms, a lounge area and private tea and coffee making facilities, and a separate toilet.
The aim of the suite is to provide privacy and dignity for our patients and their families, and is used in the following situations:
- For patients requiring palliative and end-of-life care alongside memory making.
- In cases where there has been a sudden unexpected death of a child or young person in the community, emergency department or on the children’s unit, the child/young person is then brought to Gully’s Place. This provides a comfortable and appropriate environment for the family to be with their child/young person and provides a place of privacy.
This is the model also used within University Hospital Dorset.
More information is available here.
Children and Young People's Diabetes Service
The Children and Young People’s Diabetes Service provides care to children and young people aged 0-19 with diabetes. More information is available here.