Community Children's Doctors

Types of patients regularly seen

Our service is for children and young people aged 0-16 years old but this extends to under 19 years for children with complex neurodisability educated full time in local specialist provision.

We provide medical assessment, diagnosis and management of children with neurodisabilities and complex or chronic health needs, including:

• cerebral palsy and other complex neurodisabling conditions
• chromosome or syndrome disorders (e.g Down's Syndrome) requiring Community Paediatric surveillance
• developmental difficulties in preschool children
  
• autistic spectrum disorder in preschool children
• coordination difficulties 'dyspraxia' (medical assessment only)
• severe learning difficulties in school age children (medical assessment only)
  
• Tics and Tourettes concerns (only to exclude neurological conditions)
• specialist audiology services (hyperacusis and to investigate children with hearing loss)

Patients not seen by this service

We sometimes receive inappropriate referrals for the following conditions:

• General medical conditions - for example asthma, eczema, headaches, epilepsy
• Autism assessments in the over 5s.
  
• ADHD assessments - we do not offer this service.
• Behavioural issues - this should initially be referred to the Local Authority Early Help Services. Family Connect for Telford (Tel 01952 385385) or First Point of Contact (FPOC) for Shropshire (Tel 0345 678 9021).
  In children under 5 years in whom the behaviour is suspected to be part of an underlying neurodevelopmental condition, we may offer an initial medical assessment looking for any medical conditions, but we are not able to provide on-going behaviour management support.
• Emotional/Mental Health concerns - we are a service for physical health and neurodisabilities. Mental Health and Wellbeing is commissioned separately and locally BEAM (AskBeam@childrenssociety.org.uk) offers a drop-in service for this.
• Tics and Tourette's syndrome diagnosis
• 'dyslexia' and specific learning difficulties - this is assessed by educational professionals
• Obesity and growth problems – Community Paediatrics are not commissioned to provide this service but patients can get helpful advice on the Keeping healthy pages
• Constipation - our Trust runs a Nurse-led children's constipation service
• Enuresis - referrals should be sent to the Nurse -led Paediatric Service
• Sleep - we do not have specialised expertise to assess and manage sleep disorders
• Feeding problems
• Diagnosing Learning Disability in children not already under our care. Community Paediatricians are not trained to carry out cognitive (IQ) assessments, one of the 3 criteria required to be met in diagnosing a Learning Disability, as we are Neurodevelopmental Paediatricians which means we assess childrens’ development and the tools we use are only able to be administered on the under 5's.