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NHS

Spotlights:
School Nursing

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ChatHealth

ChatHealth is widely used across school nursing services across the UK. It’s available for more than 2.9 million young people and the parents and carers of over 3 million children aged 0-19 to get confidential help and advice about a range of health issues.

Safe and secure messaging allows young people to communicate discreetly with school nurses. It’s also a convenient way for parents and carers of school-aged children aged 5-19 to get in touch with school nurses. Effective promotion encourages uptake, enabling school nurses to support more young people, children and families using existing resource.

Download ChatHealth product guide
Visit ChatHealth website

School nurses are using ChatHealth to:

  • make it easier and less embarrassing for young people to reach out for help
  • offer choice of access and anonymity to ask questions
  • engage and connect with more young people using existing resource

Number of Contacts

8,770

messaging conversations between young people and school nurses in 2022-2023

(as of March 2023)

Top Reasons for Contact

  • Emotional health and wellbeing
  • Sexual health and relationships
  • Physical health
(as of March 2023)

Busiest Time for Contact

On Tuesdays
between 14:00 – 16:00

(as of March 2023)

Service User Experience

82%

of young people who used ChatHealth said their conversation helped them

(as of March 2023)

What Service Users Say

“I love how you can talk about your feelings over text without feeling judged.”

What School Nurses Say

“The service has given young people a great platform to highlight any concerns and get the help they need confidentially.”

School nurses offer ChatHealth for parents and carers of school-aged children to:

  • deliver a convenient way for families to get help
  • reduce inequalities in accessing services
  • increase return on investment into digital ways of working

Number of Contacts

2,276

messaging conversations with parents and carers of 5-19 year olds

Number of Contacts

37,058

messaging conversations with parents and carers of 0-19 year olds

Top Reasons for Contact

  • Emotional health & wellbeing
  • General health
  • Parenting advice and support

Busiest Times for Contact

On Mondays and Tuesday
between 9:00 – 11:00

Service User Experience

84%

of parents and carers of school-aged children who used ChatHealth said their conversation helped them .

What Parents Say

“To reach someone easily and get a response so fast is really reassuring. I thought I would need a long wait to speak to anyone. “

What School Nurses Say

“ChatHealth has allowed us to offer service users an alternative, quick and easy form of access to advice from Health Visiting and School Nursing.”

Evidence

A selection of Evidence on the ChatHealth website.

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HealthWebsites

Health for Kids and Health for Teens are part of our suite of HealthWebsites. They are health information and promotion websites, designed to provide age-appropriate health and wellbeing information to children, teenagers and their parents and carers.

Expert content is written by school nurses and a range of health professionals and co-designed with young people, parents, carers and families. Local Area sections enhances the experience for users to find information and advice about local health services, news and events near them.

Download Health Websites product guide
Visit Health for Kids website
Visit Health for Teens website

School Nurses are using Health for Kids to:

  • offer easy, digital access to information and advice to parents and carers of school-aged children
  • complement and strengthen the support offered via other channels
  • provide a cost-effective way to develop and maintain an online presence

Number of Local Areas

13

Local Areas delivered by NHS partners

(as of March 2023)

Most Visited Pages

  1. Game: Poop Shooter
  2. Article: Staying Healthy
  3. Game: Shine Time
(as of March 2023)

Service User Experience

81%

of Health for Kids visitors said the information helped them

(as of March 2023)

What Kids Say

“I like the Health for Kids website because it has fun games and teaches me how to be healthy.”

School Nurses are using Health for Kids to:

  • offer easy, digital access to information and advice to young people
  • complement and strengthen the support offered via other channels
  •  provide a cost-effective way to develop and maintain an online presence

Number of Local Areas

16

Local Areas delivered by NHS partners

(as of March 2023)

Most Visited Pages

  1. Article: 7 Most Common Medical Emergencies
  2. Quiz: What Kind of Friend Are You?
  3. Article: 10 Mega Myths about Sex
(as of March 2023)

Service User Experience

75%

Health for Teens visitors said the information helped them

(as of March 2023)

What Young People Say

“The quizzes on the Health for Teens website are a really entertaining way to get information across to teens.”

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HealthForms

HealthForms is an online health needs assessment tool for improving service user outcomes.

In 2021-2022, we supported the roll out of HealthForms questionnaires by forward-thinking school nursing teams at NHS Trusts in various areas across England, including Shropshire, Coventry, Solihull, Nottinghamshire and Plymouth.

The school health questionnaires are intended to be completed by parents and carers of children starting school in the Reception year (EYFS) and by young people transitioning to or at Secondary School, according to how it’s locally commissioned.

In recent evaluation of the online health and wellbeing screening programme in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland, it was found that young people and professional stakeholders respond positively to digital health contacts. For more information about the research, look at this infographic and watch this video.

Download HealthForms product guide

HealthForms is used by school nursing teams to digitise school health questionnaire processes to:

  • Provide an efficient and paper-free way to assess health needs
  • Allow sensitive information to be disclosed confidentially
  • Promote health information and local support services

Number of Responses

11,280

questionnaire responses received in 2021-2022

Number of Questionnaires

16

questionnaire forms used in schools in 2022-2023 academic year

What Commissioners Say

“It has managed to pick up some quite complex needs and cases. Without that contact, those cases might not have been picked up.”

What Schools Say

“The relationship that we’ve had between our school nurse service and us as a school has improved through this process.”

Evidence

Go to the NIHR website to find research to evaluate digital health contacts and published journal papers

What School Nurses Say

“I’ve picked up children that have had no support in the past, not even told their parents, schools or anybody. So, we are picking up young people that otherwise would have continued to escalate further.”

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