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Community Paediatric Service - Worcestershire

  • The Community Paediatric Team are Specialist Children’s Doctors (Paediatricians) and Advanced Clinical Practitioners who have experience in child health between 0 to 18 years. They see children in a community setting and provide ongoing care if there is a clinical need. They complete clinical assessments for children and young people with long-term disability, developmental delay, neurodevelopmental conditions for example, ADHD and Autism.

  • Service hours: 9:00am - 4:30pm

About the service

Community Paediatricians work closely with children young people and families, also teams and professionals from education settings and social care to ensure that a child is looked after in a joined-up way in every environment they experience.

This means that we are very aware of the problems or difficulties children may have in school and/or at home and we can work together to ensure the child’s needs are met.

We have a statutory (legal) duty to tell the local education authority about any preschool children who are likely to need extra help in school. To do this we send a referral form to the Local Education Authority which is then discussed in a meeting called the Preschool Forum. In this meeting children with extra needs are discussed and appropriate help is allocated. More information about this can be found in the Worcestershire Local Offer and Graduated Response

We always ask for parents’ or guardians’ permission before this referral is completed and for this discussion to take place.

The service is currently experiencing unprecedented demand and as a result, there is a significant waiting list for assessment and support. At triage, cases will be risk assessed and clinically prioritised due to the urgency of their need. Please be assured that the team are doing all they can to reduce waiting times.

Our doctors and advanced practitioners

Our doctors and advanced practitioners have a lot of experience in a wide range of conditions and are highly skilled in doing assessments to understand why children and young people experience difficulties or have delays in their development. They also have the expertise to manage complex diagnosis and disabilities.

Our doctors and advanced practitioners have close links with doctors in general practice and in hospitals. They refer to and liaise with a wide variety of health professionals with specialist expertise, including Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy, Speech and Language Therapy, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services and where needed Community Children’s Nursing and Palliative Care Teams.

We work with other agencies to support vulnerable children such as those in care or going through the adoption process. We also provide medical advice to education for children with special educational needs.

We see pre-school and school-age children. This is usually up to the age of 16, but in some cases we see children up to the age of 18 with a Worcestershire GP.

What we do

The children and young people who are seen by Community Paediatrics include: 

Children and young people who experience:

  • Development delay or disorder in more than one domain
  • ADHD
  • Social and communication difficulties in pre-school children
  • Motor difficulties with neurological anomalies
  • Regression of development with loss of skills
  • Assessment of complex behaviours which have severe impact on functioning
  • Sensory impairment including aetiology of sensori-neural hearing loss
  • Management and overview of complex long term health conditions requiring ongoing medical management by a Community Paediatrician

Community paediatricians also have:

  • Statutory responsibilities for Special Educational Needs assessments (EHCP)
  • Statutory responsibilities for Child Protection, Looked after Children and adoption.
  • Responsibility to participate in specialist pathways including e.g. WMSAS/Umbrella/SUDIC

Contact details

Due to the increased demand into the service, we are making changes to the way you can contact us. The best way to contact us is via the new online form, which you can complete using the link below: 

Complete the Community Paedatrics contact form here

The below contacts numbers can still be used by parents, carers and professionals and will be open from 9am-11am and 2pm-4pm.

Medical Admin Team - For queries relating to changes in a child’s condition, or if you seek test results.

Lines are open Monday – Friday 9:00am – 11:00am, and 2:00pm – 4:00pm. 

Appointments Team – For queries about new referrals and appointments

Lines are open Monday – Friday 9:00am – 11:00am, and 2:00pm – 4:00pm.

Our teams are here to help. We recognise how emotive the care of a loved one can be and politely ask you to refrain from abuse or aggression of any kind.

How to be referred

We accept referrals from all children’s health professionals, including GPs, health visitors, school health nurses, other paediatricians, and therapists e.g. speech therapists and occupational therapists. We also accept referrals from early intervention family support workers, special educational needs coordinators and special schools. Referrals must be made using the service referral form.

Please email all referrals to the Community Paediatrics Team.

If you require any of this information in an alternative format, please let us know so your needs can be recorded and responded to.

Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND)

All children should have access to the right services, at the right time, to make sure they can reach their full potential. We work together with other agencies to ensure that the right professionals are involved at the right time to meet the needs of you and your child. Find out more about how we support children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND)