In this case study we will be sharing how partners in the Bradford district have worked together to develop a rolling programme of ‘One Stop Health Shops’ at educational settings across the district with the aim of improving access to healthcare for children and young people.
Improving access to services
Schools have long recognised the impact of health and care on children’s behaviour and their readiness to learn. Schools recognise that they can use their unique access to children and young people to link them to essential services.
Feedback received from schools shows that families feel services they receive are often late and not co-ordinated effectively across health and education settings, which contributes to poor health and education outcomes in children and young people. By their very nature schools are anchor institutions often in the heart of local communities, they are perfectly placed to link families to essential services.
Some of the partnership’s recent community engagement activity has also highlighted the need: “For children with complex needs or long-term conditions, having to access different services in different locations impacts on their lives. Bringing services together would help get things right for these young people, and bringing health services into educational settings could have a clear benefit.” Listen In Report – Children and Young People cycle, February 2024
In our local area, Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust already has a strong offer for the district’s children and young people in educational settings. A variety of services attend schools at different times during the academic year, but they wanted to build on this by piloting new delivery models.
Case Studies: Dixons Allerton High School and Oastlers School
Dixons Allerton Academy is an all-age school and Oastlers is a specialist school for children and young people with social, emotional and mental health difficulties.
The Care Trust’s Head of Community Children’s Services liaised with all service leads, staff at the schools and the Alliance for Education Life Chances (EALC) to pilot a ‘One Stop Health Shop’, bringing health services into school at the same time to offer a joined-up service for pupils and their families.
A wide variety of Trust’s services were involved in the pilot – Health Visiting, Public Health School Nursing, Infant Feeding Team, School Nursing Special Needs, Family Support Workers, Chat Health, Screening Team, Audiology Screening Team, Vaccination and Immunisations, Mental Health Support Team, Oral Health, Speech and Language Therapy, Developmental Assessments, Specialist SEND Nurse, Young Dynamos, Youth Justice Nurses and Volunteering Service.
Partner services involved were – Living Well Schools, Start for Life Family Hubs, Children’s Community Support Team, Hale Project Youth Work Team, Bradford Teaching Hospital NHS Trust’s Paediatric Dieticians and Dance United.
The virtual team worked together to design flyers, a social media communications campaign, an appointment booking system (for the Dixons Allerton event) and then delivered the events, recording activities and gathering feedback.
Health-related activities on offer included audiology assessments, lunchbox ideas and weight loss advice. Other support included speech and language development, toothbrushing advice, hand hygiene, heights and weights checks. It’s widely recognised that immunisation and vaccination rates are declining, and the One Stop Health Shops gave people access to advice and vaccinations including MMR (measles, mumps and rubella), HPV (human papillomavirus) and DTP (diphtheria tetanus and polio). In addition, to make this an experience for the whole family, health visitors offered advice for parents bringing along babies and infants.
With a range of different services available, it can be difficult for people to find the right one for them. These events also offered signposting to healthcare support such as Chat Health, Better Lives Health Futures and mental health support for parents along with signposting to various Special Education Needs and/or Disabilities (SEND) services.
What were the outcomes and impact?
The pilot demonstrates that there is real support and appetite for health services to be delivered in school and both parents / carers and pupils have asked for the events to be repeated. Without the event some stated that they would not have sought out health services for their child or known how to access services.
- Pupils and their families attended the One Stop Health Shop in the school building.
- Pupils and their families could receive advice, signposting, consultation, and clinical interventions on the day.
- Pupils and parents could be introduced to wider health services.
- Reducing health inequalities in children and young people.
More specific and measurable data, is demonstrated below:
- Dixons Allerton Academy is an all-age school. 79 of the 92 appointments were attended, which is an 85.8% appointment attendance rate. There were 72 consultations and 193 clinical interventions including 35 audiology assessments.
- Oastlers is a specialist school for children and young people with social, emotional and mental health difficulties. No appointment booking system was needed as all the school’s 67 learners attended along with 16 parents / carers. There were 24 consultations and 128 clinical interventions.
Feedback from parents / carers
“It’s been good. I had a day off, so came with my mum to get the kids weighed, see the health visitors and talk to the oral health team – the toothbrushing stuff was good.”
“I’m here with my three children – two are in secondary and one in primary. They’ve had hearing tests and I’ve been able to find out about lots of different services – including things I didn’t know existed. It’s good to have the event here as the school is in the centre of the community. If there was another event, it would be good to have a pharmacist to talk about children’s medicines. I’d also really like to see a representative from local GP practices to tell us what they do, why it’s so hard to get appointments and how we can be part of patient participation groups. They do text us, but that can be a bit frightening if you don’t know what it’s about.”
“I’m here with my wife and family. We met the SEND nurses and found out about CAMHS, injections and toothbrushing. It’s really helpful that everything’s in one place – we wouldn’t have got all that information otherwise because you’re not going to google it. We’ve not got this type of thing with everything in one place in the community yet but having it here in school is brilliant because they understand us, and we know they’re trustworthy.”
“One lady who came to speak to us had limited English, Kurdish was her first language. As language was a barrier, I showed her the FYI site and translated it into Kurdish, she was amazed that she was able to access and process all this information and support. This was great not just for our programme but other services across the district. The smile on her face spoke volumes!”
What did the young learners say about their experience?
“It’s ace. I didn’t know about all this health stuff.”
“It’s been very useful and brilliant.”
“It’s good to look around and learn more.”
“I introduced a male Year 9 Learner to Chat Health, gave him a card and explained how this service works and that it would be available over the school summer holiday period. The learner quickly put the card in his pocket ‘to keep it safe’ and said ‘I might need this’.”
Next steps?
For further information about One Stop Health Shops please email Dawn Lee, Head of Community Children’s Services at Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust Dawn.Lee@bdct.nhs.uk
Further information about children’s community health services
A 24/7 online resource in the shape of a new website has also been launched by Family Health services which includes school nursing and oral health where families and carers can access useful guides on a wide range of topics including immunisation, mental health, diet, tooth brushing, sexual health and drugs and alcohol.
The website includes emergency and out-of-hours contact numbers all in one place.
Visit the Better Lives Healthy Futures website (betterliveshealthyfuturesbw.nhs.uk)