Paediatric Psychology

Referrals are typically made by healthcare professionals (including GPs, nurses, paediatricians, health visitors, dieticians, and mental health workers) or other professionals such as teachers, school nurses and special educational needs co-ordinators (SENCOs).

The Paediatric Psychology team welcomes contact from healthcare professionals before a referral is made for advice and case consultation.

Referrals should be made via the Northamptonshire Referral Management Centre.

Referral Management Centre information

Referral Management Centre referral form

Referral criteria

CAMHS staff

If you are considering making a referral into the Paediatric Psychology Service, please use the following referral criteria as a guide.

Please contact one of the Paediatric Psychologists in the team to discuss the referral further.

If it is agreed that Paediatric Psychology is the most appropriate service to support a young person, please complete the following: 

1. A record of the consultation with Paediatric Psychology team on SystmOne
2. A Referral Management Centre (RMC) referral, including an up-to-date and comprehensive risk assessment 
3. If the referral is deemed urgent, email the Paediatric Psychology Service to notify the team of your RMC referral. This should be done by emailing paediatricpsychology@nhft.nhs.uk 

The following questions may also be helpful to consider when making a referral:

• Does the psychological need link to their physical health difficulty?
• What services are currently involved with this young person? And is there any on-going treatment or investigations?
• What support has been previously offered? What (if any) intervention has this young person received?
• Why would this service user be better managed in paediatric psychology service rather than general CAMHS?
• The young person must have a physical health issue which is seen as a clear part of the problem

Please note that our service model does not always fit neatly into a mild/moderate/severe model of mental health services.

For example, a young person might present with 'mild or moderate' anxiety, but significant difficulties in relation to self esteem, adjustment, compliance with medical treatment, and engagement in activities of daily living, such as attending school or coping with visible difference.

Therefore, to access the service, the young person's difficulties will need to have a moderate- severe impact in relation to:  

• engaging in activities of daily living, adjustment to a medical and/or life-limiting condition, or access to/compliance with medical treatment (with the exception of SLAs - diabetes and cystic fibrosis)

In most circumstances, the young person needs to be either under the care of a hospital-based paediatrician or to have been under them for investigations but may have recently been discharged.

Specific consent for the young person will need to be sought for those aged 8 years and over

We work with young people with conditions such as:

• Diabetes
• Epilepsy
• Oncology (including work with parents, siblings and families of patients with cancer)
• Cystic fibrosis  
• Chronic fatigue syndrome, diagnosed with a significant low mood component where there is access to an MDT  
• Asthma
• Pain, with and without underlying medical cause (e.g. juvenile arthritis)
• Dermatological problems
• Elimination difficulties where primary care support (such as health visitors and/or the Continence Service) has been tried and there is a significant mood component
• A specific syndrome with low mood/anxiety/adjustment difficulties associated with the syndrome presentation in the absence of learning disability*
• Chronic health issue and procedural anxiety (inpatient and outpatient basis)
• Life-limiting conditions such as muscular dystrophy
• Visible difference related to a medical condition
• Cardiological conditions  
• Other medically unexplained symptoms (e.g. medically unexplained seizures) where:
  • Medical investigations have already been completed
  • A clear diagnosis has been provided (e.g. NEAD and FND)
  • An appointment with a paediatrician or neurologist to provide feedback has taken place
  • The young person will need to be kept open to a Paediatrician.  
• Feeding difficulties, in the context of and directly related to a current diagnosed medical condition

* Where an MDT approach is required, families may be referred to tertiary centres.

Paediatric Psychology exclusion criteria

• Needle phobia in absence of physical health condition
• Person with a chronic health issue with a moderate/severe learning disability
• Unexplained weight loss
• Elimination problems alone and without a significant mood component - (e.g. encopresis (soiling), enuresis (urination) or constipation)
• Selective mutism (often linked with trauma/attachment issues which are better held by multidisciplinary mental health team)
• Bereavement difficulties  
• Sibling support  
• Medical trauma which is not associated with difficulties accessing ongoing/future medical treatment
• Survivors of oncology treatment who have been in remission for 2 years or more with no active treatment (no requirement for specialist health knowledge or ongoing liaison with physical health colleagues) 

Download the Paediatric Psychology Referral Criteria document [pdf] 220KB