Whitworth Medical Centre is a recognised provider of child health surveillance. The national child health surveillance program is provided by your Health Visitors and GPs. Child Health Surveillance clinics run on Monday’s at 1:30pm by appointment. There are also health visitor drop in clinics on Tuesday afternoon 2.00pm – 4.00pm at Whitworth Childrens Centre, Hallfold, Hall Street, Whitworth, Tel 01706 648747.
Schedule
- New-born
- This is provided in hospital before discharge. This involves physical examination by the doctor and neonatal hearing testing.
- Post-natal Assessment
- This is provided by the health visitors on home visits. It includes the heel prick test. When new-born babies are about a week old a blood sample is taken from their heel. Blood from the baby’s heel is dropped onto a special type of filter paper called a Guthrie card and stored as a series of blood spots. A number of tests are then carried out on these blood spots for the purposes of new-born screening.
- 8 Week Assessment
- Your baby should be weighed and measured by the Health Visitors in one of the Health Visitor Drop-in Clinics prior to seeing the doctor. The GP will provide a physical and developmental examination at the 8 week check. If the baby is well, they will then see the practice nurse for the first round of childhood vaccinations (see child immunisation clinic).
- 9 Month Assessment
- This is provided by the health visitors and involves developmental assessment.
- 18 Month Assessment
- This is provided by the health visitors and involves developmental assessment.
Where necessary children will be referred on to hearing , eye, speech or development specialist services. If at any time a child’s condition requires medical input outside of the routine clinics , this can be arranged in the usual way through surgery appointments.
Appointments for these clinics are routinely sent to children through the post when these assessments are due.
Did you know that East Lancashire CCG have produced a pamphlet (available in surgery) and a web page covering common childhood conditions. It refers to local services and is a very good reference for basic advice on many childhood conditions for parents and carers.