Involving patients, carers and their families in making decisions about their care can lead to better outcomes and a better overall experience. We are looking at ways to involve patients in shaping future healthcare services.

We recognise and value the contribution of patients and carers. It is the role of the Patient and Carer Involvement Team to co-ordinate and facilitate involvement, as well as ensuring that appropriate training and support of those involved is provided in order to maintain their own well being.

Rehab Jigsaw provides independent occupational therapy services throughout the UK. We have an experienced, professional team delivering bespoke yet cost effective solutions. We work with clients experiencing the effects of illness or injury upon their ability to complete day to day activities at home, work or in education. Rehab Jigsaw was established by Occupational Therapists and is managed by Occupational Therapists.

This service is provided externally to the NHS.

We are a passionate and caring Deaf-led team working towards a future where there are no barriers to good health and wellbeing for Deaf people.

We partner with the NHS and service providers across the country.

We are one of the UK’s largest employers of Deaf people, and most hearing staff in our projects and services are fluent sign language users.

We have a page about the support we can give to young people.  Check it out here: Are you a deaf young person? - SignHealth 

Brook’s nationally recognised Sexual Behaviours Traffic Light Tool and training provides a highly visible, multi-agency response that helps professionals to identify, understand and respond appropriately to sexual behaviours in young people.

Tree Tops has been developed with great foundations in the knowledge of assessment and treatment techniques of children.

Our dedicated therapists have extensive knowledge into conditions of DCD, Dyspraxia, ADHD, and Sensory Processing Disorders.

Quality care and support for people with learning and physical disabilities, brain injuries, autism and complex needs across the UK.

We’re a charitable hospice rooted in the North East. We provide outstanding, specialist and expert care to adults and children with life-limiting conditions. We strive to provide quality time for everyone.

Respite and taking a break

Caring for someone can be physically and emotionally exhausting, and carers struggle to find the time to look after themselves. You may feel unable to leave the person you care for but taking a break can help you provide better care and avoid burning out. Find out who can help you organise a break, and how to make sure your friend or family member gets the right care while you’re away from them.

The health visitor’s role starts during pregnancy and continues to offer support through the first few weeks after the birth, and all the way through until early childhood.

All health visitors are nurses or midwives with specialist training in family and community health. They work with parents and families to improve health and wellbeing.

The health visitors are part of a team that includes staff nurses and community nursery nurses.

The children’s acute nursing initiative (CANI) is a team of nurses who help with the early discharge of children from hospital.

We look after children from the Newcastle area who have been unwell in hospital but have improved enough to go home – with the support from CANI’s team of experienced children’s nurses.

Our services

To help children go home earlier, we can:

Our Allergy Service is led by a specialist team based in the Great North Children’s Hospital at the Royal Victoria Infirmary.

Clinics also take place in Benfield Park Medical Group in east Newcastle and specialist clinics at the Freeman Hospital.

Our Children’s audiology services provides a full range of hearing tests from birth upwards.

We work closely with other professionals and specialists to provide support for children with hearing impairments.

These include:

• Educational sensory support workers
• Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) consultants
• Speech and Language Therapists; and Health Visitors.

If your child needs digital hearing aids, we can fit and programmed these specifically for your child.

Our children’s endocrinology and diabetes service is a regional centre for children with hormonal disorders, including diabetes.

Our team run an extensive range of clinics in diabetes, general endocrinology and growth.

Alongside this we run specialist clinics for children with Turner Syndrome and Metabolic Syndrome.

We also run a number of joint clinics with other clinical colleagues specialising in:

The Children’s Audiology service can help with children’s hearing aids, their fitting, hearing aid reviews and repairs.

The Children’s Heart Unit at the Freeman Hospital provides care for children up to 18 years old who need medical or surgical help for conditions involving the heart, lungs and airways.

It is one of two units in the UK to carry out heart and lung transplants on children.

We are the only centre in the country to provide all cardiac care from conception, through birth, childhood and on to adulthood.

Our infectious diseases service looks after children admitted to the hospital with severe infections.

Together with the microbiologists and virologists, we also advise other teams looking after children with infections such as osteomyelitis or meningitis.

We advise on:

• diagnostic tests
• which antibiotics to use – either by cannula or medicine, or tablets – and for how long.

With this advice we aim to get the best results with as few side-effects as possible.

Children’s intensive care provides medical and nursing care for critically ill children from birth to 16 years.

Children can become critically ill when one or more of their organs start to fail. This can cause them to become so ill there is a risk that they may die. 

Children’s intensive care aims to support children through their illness until they recover to continue life with their family.

Critical illness can be cause by a number of reasons

We provide a comprehensive regional children’s kidney disease (nephrology) service for the North East and North Cumbria.

One of only thirteen specially designated centres for children’s nephrology in the UK, we look after children from childbirth up to the age of 18 years.

Our service is mainly led by consultants and specialist nurses who are specially trained to be able to diagnose and treat acute kidney injury (sudden kidney failure), as well chronic kidney disease (long term kidney failure).

Our children’s neurology department is the only specialist neurology service in the North East and Cumbria.

We provide highly advanced treatments for disorders of the brain, spinal cord, nerves and muscles.

This includes treatment for:

Our children’s orthopaedic service cares for children and young people with disorder and injuries to muscles, tendons, joints, bones and nerves.

We aim to provide our children with the best possible orthopaedic care at the Great North Children’s Hospital.

We provide specialist respiratory care for children and young people.

Our children’s respiratory unit provides specialist respiratory care for children in the North East. Patients are referred to us from local paediatricians and GPs.

We support patients at the Great North Children’s Hospital and the Freeman Hospital.

Our staff are familiar with the specific needs of children, and we care for our young patients on dedicated wards and outpatient departments.

Our children’s rheumatology team care for children and young people with rheumatic diseases.

Our specialist services include the investigation, diagnosis and treatment of children’s rheumatic diseases. We also provide education and ongoing support.

We are the only children’s rheumatology team outside London to provide autologous stem-cell treatment for children with the most severe rheumatological problems.

The service also has one of the UK’s largest research programmes into children’s rheumatology diseases.