Paediatric Psychology

Paediatric Psychology Team
Room 9
Hengrave House
Torbay Hospital
Lowes Bridge
Torquay TQ2 7AA

Tel: 01803 654576

About us

We are a small team who work very closely with families and professionals, as well as with other agencies and services, to help the emotional, behavioural and psychological wellbeing of children and young people.

What is Paediatric Psychology?

A Paediatric Psychologist works with children and young people who have a physical health condition and are experiencing emotional, behavioural or psychological problems as a result of this.

We also work with doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech and language therapists, dieticians and other allied health professionals.

We meet with children, young people and their families for lots of different reasons including:

• Preparing for medical procedures, surgery or admission
• Coping with a diagnosis or being different
• Experiencing bullying

We might talk, or draw, or play to try to understand how we can help. We try to learn more about you. What are you like? What do you want to talk about? Is there something you would like to be different?

Accessing our service

If you would like to access our service, please ask your child’s Paediatrician, or another healthcare professional within the Trust, to make a referral.

• Your child must have a physical health condition and present with emotional, behavioural or psychological difficulties related to this
• Your child/young person is under the care of a Torbay and South Devon Paediatrician
• Your child/young person is informed about our service and has consented to the referral

We will try to help with most worries or concerns that your child presents with, for more information regarding the service we offer please see below.

Referrals are accepted from healthcare professionals based within Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust. Referrals will be discussed on an individual basis in our weekly referrals meeting.

At the first appointment

Aim: we want to get to know you a little, to understand how things are going, and to see if there is anything that we can work on together to try to make things better. We can then make a plan about what we can do next

• You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to
• Our talks can be private or with your parent/carer
• We will ask you what you want to share with other people. We tell your doctor that we’ve seen you – but we don’t tell others what you’ve said without asking you first. The only exception to this is if we have concerns about your safety
• With your permission, it may be helpful for us to talk with the people who support you locally
  • Your School
  • GP
  • Community Nurse
  • Social Worker
  • Health Visitor