Everyday health services
Most health services are available to everyone and you do not need an assessment or referral to use them. Everyday health services can meet the needs of many children and young people with special educational needs.
If you live in Medway, visit their local offer.
Types of general health services
Your child or young person can access a variety of health services to meet their health needs, as well as specialist and targeted services. Services may differ depending on where in Kent you live.
This includes:
- GPs (doctors)
- dentists
- Health Visiting Service
- hospitals
- opticians
- pharmacies
- social care
- school public health service
- urgent walk ins
Before you go to an appointment
When visiting a general health service, don't forget to look into:
- Learning Disability Register - a record of all those living with a learning disability. If your child is over the age of 14 with a learning disability, they are also entitled to an annual health check.
- Hospital passport - a hospital passport tells the hospital about your healthcare, your learning disability, how you like to communicate and how to make things easier for you.
- Children's Health and Wellbeing Navigator Service- ask your GP if you can receive support from your local care navigator
- NHS toolkit for parents - explains where to get help and gives advice on common health problems. It also lists items for the home medicine cabinet.
Reasonable adjustments
It's a good idea to let the person you're seeing know that you may need a reasonable adjustment. A reasonable adjustment can include:
- a longer appointment
- easy read documents to explain the appointment
- clearer signs to get there.
Learn more about reasonable adjustments.
Easy read support
If you need an easy read version of visiting a health service, here are some great resources for you.
Visiting a GP or hospital:
- what happens when you visit your GP
- how to tell your GP that you have a learning disability
- find out more about visiting a hospital
Visiting a pharmacy:
- a large print guide to problems a pharmacist can help with
- how a pharmacist can help
- how a pharmacist can help (BSL video)
Visiting the dentist:
Visiting an optician
- watch a video from a child's point of view of an appointment
- visit Scope's website for a variety of easy read documents when going to an optician
Contact your local NHS health provider
Services in Kent can fall under one of these providers:
- Kent Community Health Foundation Trust (KCHFT)
- Dartford and Gravesham Trust (DGT)
- East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust (EKHUFT)
- Kent and Medway Partnership Trust (KMPT)
- Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells Trust (MTW)
- Medway Community Healthcare (Medway and Swale)
- Medway Foundation Trust
- North East London Foundation Trust (NELFT)
If you are not happy with the service being provided to your child, find out who can support you and how to raise a complaint.