A boy's hand thrust forward towards the camera

One Minute Guide: Health Services

Integrated Care Board (ICB)

ICBs are part of the NHS and have a legal responsibility to help keep children safe and support their wellbeing. They work closely with the local council and the police to make sure that children are protected from harm. These three organisations are called safeguarding partners, and they work together to plan how to protect children, make sure services work well together, and learn from serious cases where a child has been seriously harmed or abused.

To do this, Integrated Care Boards employ specialist health professionals like Designated Nurses, Doctors, and Named GPs who are experts in child safeguarding. These professionals help make sure that all NHS services (like hospitals, GP surgeries, and mental health services) have the right training, policies, and systems in place to notice and respond to abuse or neglect. Integrated Care Boards also check how well these services are doing, support them to improve, and help everyone work together to get the best outcomes for children.

How can professionals contact the Integrated Care Board North Yorkshire and York Safeguarding Team?

Primary Care – GP Practices

What services do GP Practices offer?

  • Majority of children, families and adults are registered with an NHS GP practice
  • GP practices are the first point of contact for many health issues but increasingly patients can self-refer to services such as mental health and midwifery
  • Provide high quality universal healthcare services and can identify families who need additional support
  • Support victims and survivors of abuse and neglect
  • Provide ongoing healthcare to children and parents/carers
  • May hold important information about the health of children and parents/carers which is relevant to safeguarding
  • Contribute to safeguarding children's assessments and multi-agency meetings ie strategies and case conferences
  • Each GP practice has a safeguarding lead
  • Each GP practice is linked to a Health Visitor

How can professionals contact GP practices?

Ring the GP practice direct: explain who you are, why you are ringing and that you require information for safeguarding. You may be advised to put your request for information in a secure email to the practice. Within the email, you will need to provide information about the current situation, what the safeguarding concerns are and the current level of risk/harm. You will also need to provide information about which patients you are seeking information about, whether consent from these patients has been obtained or not, or reasons why consent has not been sought. Ref: RCGP Safeguarding toolkit: Who should we share information with, and how?

York and Scarborough Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (YSTHFT)

What services does the Trust provide?

York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (YSTHFT) provides a range of acute hospital and specialist healthcare services across York, North Yorkshire, North East Yorkshire and Ryedale

  • Urgent Care (Emergency Department) - York and Scarborough Hospitals
  • Minor Injuries - Bridlington and Selby Hospitals
  • General Paediatric services
  • Specialist Paediatric services and liaison with specialist units out of area
  • Allied Health Professional services (via Primary Care referral in service)
  • Specialist community paediatric nursing services
  • Maternity services are provided Trust wide (York, Scarborough, Malton, Selby, Bridlington and Whitby). Maternity units for births are located at York and Scarborough Hospitals
  • Special Care Baby Units York and Scarborough
  • Sexual Health including Young people's sexual health service
  • Safeguarding Children Team – Trust wide service 9.00am to 4.30pm, Monday to Friday
  • Child Protection Medicals
  • Looked After Child medical examinations (limited criteria)

How can professionals contact the Trusts Safeguarding Team?

Tees Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust (TEWV)

What services does Tees Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust provide?

  • Specialist mental health assessments and numerous clinical interventions for both children (CAMHS), Adults (AMH) and people with Learning Disabilities (LD)
  • Services are accessed by ‘single point of access teams’ both for adult and CAMHS teams
  • Provide both Adult Mental Health and Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services Crisis teams services who link across Street Triage and other front facing services
  • The Trust currently provides Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services and Adult Mental Heath community and in patient services across the Trust’s footprint, which covers York, North Yorkshire, South Tees, North Tees and Durham and Darlington linking into several acute hospital trusts and local safeguarding children’s partnerships

How can professionals contact the Trusts safeguarding Team?

If you are aware there is a Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services, Adult Mental Health or LD worker involved with a family you should contact them directly for information or to invite them to safeguarding meetings

The Trust has a Single Point of Contact (SPOC) for requests to establish if the Trust are involved with a child or family and to request relevant and proportionate information to inform assessments/ decision making.

The Single Point of Contact is available Monday to Friday 9.00am to 5.00pm:

City of York Healthy Child Service (HCS)

What services does the Healthy Child Service provide?

The Healthy Child Service is the City of York Council’s service for delivering Health Visiting and School Nursing public health services for children and young people aged 0-19 years old. The service delivers The Healthy Child Programme (Department of Health 2009) to York residents and school children who attend Maintained Schools and Academies in York. The Healthy Child Service offer commences when a woman is 28 weeks pregnant through to young people up to their 19th birthday.

0-5 years

Universal

  • Antentatal contact, New Birth contact 10-14 days, 6-8 weeks review, 4-month workshop, 9-12 months review, 2-2.5 years review
  • HENRY Healthy Families programme
  • Family Foundations programme

Targeted

  • perinatal mental health support
  • infant feeding support
  • parenting support including speech, language and communication needs, home safety, behaviour, sleep, toilet training, and healthy eating
  • support for children with additional health/ development needs
  • Health needs assessments for Children in Care

5-19 years

Universal

  • Advice phone line for school aged children’s health
  • Reception aged National Childhood Measurement Programme and vision and hearing screening
  • Year 6 National Childhood Measurement Programme

Targeted

  • Health needs assessments and support as appropriate for school-aged children and young people at risk of poorer health outcomes. This includes but is not limited to: children supported by children’s social care, Children in Care, Young Carers, Asylum Seekers, Gyspy and Travellers, electively home educated children, school attendance concerns where health issues are a barrier to attendance.
  • Enhanced support offer for children and young people supported by York Hospital Specialist bowel and bladder team

Please contact us if you are unsure if we can offer school-nursing support.

       For further details see Healthy Child Service Healthy Child Service – Raise York

How can professionals contact the Healthy Child Service?

Leeds York Partnership Foundation Trust (LYPFT):

What services do Leeds York Partnership Foundation Trust provide?

Leeds York Partnership Foundation Trust is the main provider of specialist mental health and learning disability services in Leeds.  They also provide specialist services across York, The Yorkshire and Humber region, and some highly specialised national services.

They offer services to people who need support and treatment for a wide range of mental health conditions. We support people living with issues such as addiction, eating disorders or physical problems with psychological causes and those needing support of our gender identity service,

Leeds York Partnership Foundation Trust offer community supported living and in patient care to people with a learning disability, who can present with challenging behaviour or complex physical needs.

Leeds York Partnership Foundation Trust offer services across the region, and in a variety of locations, including in patient children’s services in York, deaf children’s services across northern England and secure services for Leeds and York

How can professionals contact  Leeds York Partnership Foundation TrustSafeguarding Team?

Change, Grow, Live (CGL)

What services do Change, Grow, Live provide?

The Gate provides specialist support across the City of York for children and young people who use substances and would like support in changing this with harm reduction advice, tailored interventions, and reduction planning. We also support children and young people who are affected by drug and alcohol use from parents or carers. Our service supports:

  • Young people aged 9–18 who are using substances and need help to reduce or stop their use
  • Children and young people aged 5–18 who are affected by a parent or close family member’s substance use
  • Young adults 18-25 who are using substances and need help to reduce or stop their use

We offer a holistic, trauma-informed approach with clinical oversight and a combination of 1-to-1 tailored support, school-based interventions, and family-focused work. In addition to direct client support, we deliver professional training to schools, social care teams, and other partner agencies, helping build local capacity to identify and respond to substance misuse concerns early.

Our aim is to reduce harm, build resilience, and empower young people and families to make positive, informed choices.

How can professionals contact Change, Grow, Live?

Young People team

Adult team

Mountain Health Care

What Services to Mountain Health Care provide?

Mountain Healthcare is dually commissioned by NHS England and Police, to provide healthcare services for Sexual Assault Referral Centres (SARC) contracts. Mountain Healthcare is the largest provider for SARC services in the UK and the provider for the SARC/CSAAS (Child Sexual Abuse Assessment Service) in North Yorkshire and York.

In all cases, regardless of whether the abuse is recent or non-recent or gender identity, consideration must always be given to whether the child or young person requires a sexual abuse medical assessment. As part of the assessment, a child or young person is offered a holistic examination, access to STI and pregnancy testing, as well as referrals to onward support services. All professionals are encouraged to contact Mountain Healthcare, who can be contacted via their 24/7 national call centre for advice by our trained sexual offence examiners. Children and young people will attend the service with a police officer and/or social worker.

How can Mountain Health Care be contacted?

  • Telephone: 0330 223 0099