Children’s Hospital at Home

About the service

We are a team of paediatric nurses and doctors with specialist skills and experience in caring for children and young people. Our nurses are dedicated to providing care for children and young people with acute and short-term health needs at home, and in other community settings. We are a referral only service, and work closely with the medical team at the hospital and GPs in the community.

Our nurses undertake practical nursing care in partnership with children and parents/carers. We also work with the Children’s Community Nursing (CCN) Service to help provide specialist paediatric nursing care for children at home with nursing needs, out of hours of their normal working hours.

What we do

We aim to:

• Prevent and minimise admissions to hospital
• Facilitate early discharge from hospital wherever possible
• Provide advice and practical support for children and their families in the self-management of acute and short term health conditions
• Promote the physical, psychological and emotional wellbeing of children and young people in their own environment

Our initial contact with you to assess your child will be by telephone. Following on from this, we may need to visit your home to assess your child face-to-face. We will agree and arrange any follow up contacts with you depending on your child's needs.

Our team will work together with other health professionals to ensure we can provide you and your child the best care of acute and short-term health conditions in the most appropriate place.

Our team work closely with community children’s nurses and provide some essential care outside of their hours to avoid unnecessary hospital admissions.

Accessing the service

We are a referral only service. Referrals must meet the following criteria:

• The child or young person must be aged between 0 and 18-years-old
• The child or young person must be living and registered with a GP within the Southampton City or South West Hampshire Locality (excluding Avon Valley, Eastleigh and Chandlers ford).

Referrals can be made by a GP or by the Paediatric Team at the hospital.

To make a referral please either:

• Complete the E-Referral Form
• Contact the team on: 0300 123 6609 ​​

Surgeries eligible for referrals can be found in the accordion at the bottom of this page.