Collaborative Approaches to Optimising Outcomes in Children’s Continuing Care

In 2013 I was working as a nursing assistant for a child with complex needs in his own home as part of his continuing care package.  It was here I learnt all of my clinical skills which now underpin the assessment and scoring within the children's continuing care framework.  I completed a children's nursing degree and got my first NHS role at Oxleas within children's continuing care where I worked to support children and young people over night who needed nursing intervention.  In 2018, I moved into paediatric continence and supported children and young people with bladder and bowel management, and then when the opportunity arose to combine those two experiences in special schools, I became a senior nurse supporting children and young people with complex needs in school.  My passion has always been for children and young people with complex needs and how we can best support them, so it was inevitable I would move back into continuing care, and I did, as the clinical skills trainer to ensure junior staff were able to safely and competently complete the essential clinical interventions the children and young people needed over night.  I have remained in children's continuing care and progressed to WellChild lead continuing care nurse, and am now one of the matrons overseeing all three of the services I have worked in myself: children's continuing care, special school nursing and paediatric continence.  I still lead on all the assessments within Greenwich and Bexley, and continue to explore new, and more creative ways of working and supporting the children and young people given the current challenges with resource, and population growth.