Continence

This service provides advice and support to help children and young people aged 0-19 to gain control of their bladder and bowel functions including toileting, constipation, nocturnal enuresis (bed-wetting) and day-time enuresis (wetting).

Achieving control of bladder and bowel function is a normal part of development for most children and young people. Some children and young people need more help than most to achieve full control and some will need on-going support to be as independent as possible in this area.

Advice and support is available from nursing teams within Children and Family Health Surrey, including the 0-19 teams (Health visiting and School nursing teams) or the Special school nurses (who are based in Surrey schools for pupils with severe learning difficulties). The Children’s community nurses have excellent knowledge and skills to support children and young people with long-term constipation.

Access to this service is open to those who live in Surrey, have a Surrey GP or attend a Surrey school. Some aspects of the service may have slightly different criteria and we will tell you if this is the case and help you find the right provider for your child or young person.

Early toileting advice and support

For when you have questions about potty-training, improving bowel habits and avoiding constipation, becoming dry at night, help when it’s not going right or home / school life is making it worse. Contact your local 0-19 team (Health visiting and School nursing teams) or the Special school nurses.

Constipation

For when you’ve tried to improve bowel habits, it hasn’t worked and your child/young person has been seen by their GP for a trial of medicine called Movicol. You can talk to your local 0-19 team (Health visiting and School nursing teams), Special school nurses or your GP for a referral to the Children’s community nurses in your local area. 

If you have been referred already and need to contact the Children's Community Nurses,  please contact 01737 214 784 (if you live in East Surrey) or 01483 783 162 (if you live in West Surrey). 

Nocturnal enuresis

For when your child or young person is dry in the day-time but still wets the bed on most nights of the week and you’ve tried all the tips from the Early toileting advice and support.  You can talk to your local 0-19 team (Health visiting and School nursing teams), Special school nurses or contact your GP for a referral to this part of the service or make a referral yourself through One Stop (your child/young person must be 5yr+ to access this).

The process of becoming dry at night requires commitment from both the child and their parent/carer. We will support you using the evidence-based three systems approach (NICE 2016) and focus on the three main reasons that children and young people find it difficult to be dry at night. To help you, we sometimes use a booklet called ‘Inspector Ted’ which has lots of information and advice as well as supporting your attendance at clinic appointments. (You can download the charts you may need from the resources section below).

Your first appointment will be at a local clinic. Please be assured that we do not do a physical examination as part of our assessment. Follow-up appointments may be in clinic or on the phone.

In some parts of Surrey we are sending text message reminders for Nocturnal enuresis clinic appointments as a pilot.

If you would like to opt out of text message reminders please call or text 07713 094 697 leaving your name, your child’s name and your mobile number. We aim to action these calls within five working days.

Alternatively you could email csh.dpo@nhs.net.  

Day-time enuresis

For when your child or young person is not dry in the day-time and you’ve tried all the tips from the Early toileting advice and support. It’s likely that your child or young person has additional learning or medical needs and is probably aged 4yrs+. You can talk to your local 0-19 team (Health visiting and School nursing teams), Special school nurses or contact your GP for a referral to this part of the service or make a referral yourself through One Stop.

If you need to contact the team please call or text 07713 094 697. 

Following referral to us, we will assess your child or young person’s continence needs and develop a plan of support that works for them and for you. Part of this plan may be through the provision of containment products for those children and young people who are over 4yrs of age and are not able/ready to have control of their bladder and bowel. If this is the case, we will work with you to find suitable products.