References
Time to Shine: Development of a new clinical model for a school health service: A practice development case study
Abstract
In the autumn of 2021, a project was commissioned by the chief nursing officer of Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust (CLCH). The aim was to review the existing school health provision across all six boroughs where school health was delivered, to propose a revised clinical model to meet the needs of the service, to ensure the voice of children and young people was incorporated and to ensure wide staff involvement in the development of the future model. At the end of the project a new skill mix clinical model, based on a demand and capacity tool, was agreed. A new approach to case conference attendance was introduced, a complexity tool was developed to support the allocation of staff to schools, training requirements for community school staff nurses were identified and provided via the in-house electronic learning system and a children and young people's forum was established.
The school health service, delivered by school nurses who have successfully completed the specialist community public health nurse qualification and skill mix colleagues, is the only frontline NHS service linking health and education, providing an essential Public Health service for children, young people and future generations and addressing inequalities. In 2004, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) created a third part of the professional nurse register for all specialist community public health nurses that included school nurses, health visitors and occupational health nurses.
Historically school nurses emerged at the same time as health visitors during the Victorian era in Britain, with a role in gathering information in the school setting. The early tasks of school nurses arose out of the need to improve the health of children living in poverty (The Queen's Nursing Institute, 2017).
In the 2010 Marmot Review, Fair Society Healthy Lives, emphasis was placed on a range of factors that impact the health of the nation, including ill-health prevention. A further review in 2021 maintains the importance of the emphasis on early intervention to prevent health inequalities (Marmot, 2021). Many of the early aims of the school health service remain applicable today.
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