The Continence 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 including health visiting and school nursing 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.
If you need to contact the service or change your appointment, please contact the appropriate team through the links below.
Contact your local health visiting, school nursing or special school nursing teams if 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.
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 health visiting or school nursing team, the 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).
ERIC website (the children's bowel and bladder charity)
The nocturnal enuresis service is 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 early toileting advice and support (see section above).
You can talk to your local health visiting, school nursing or special school nursing teams or contact your GP for a referral to this part of the service or make a referral yourself through the One Stop Referral Service. Your child / young person must be five years old or more 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 'useful resources' section below.
Your first appointment will be at a local clinic (addresses in the section below). We do not do a physical examination as part of our assessment. Follow-up appointments may be in clinic or by phone.
School Nursing Team (Spelthorne): Ashford Clinic, 66 Stanwell Road, Ashford, Middlesex TW15 3DU
Tel: 01784 883 695
0-19 Epsom Team: Epsom Clinic, Church Street, Epsom KT17 4PH
Tel: 01372 730 040
0-19 Leatherhead Team: Leatherhead Clinic, Poplar Road, Leatherhead KT22 8SD
Tel: 01372 384 427
School Nursing Team: Jarvis Centre, 60 Stoughton Road, Guildford GU1 1LJ
Tel: 01483 783 171
School Nursing Team: Farnham Hospital and Centre for Health, Hale Road, Farnham GU9 9QOL
Tel: 01483 782 092
0-19 Molesey Team: Molesey Clinic, The Forum, Walton Road, West Molesey KT8 2HZ
Tel: 020 8979 6464
School Nursing Team: Camberley Health Centre, 159 Frimley Road, Camberley GU152QA
Tel: 01276 21799
School Nursing Team: Woking Community Hospital, Heathside Road, Woking GU22 7HS
Tel: 01483 846 201
0-19 School Nurse Team: Moat House Surgery, Worsted Green, Merstham, Redhill RH1 3PN
Tel: 01883 732 871
0-19 School Nurse Team: Caterham Dene Hospital, Church Road Caterham CR3 5RA
Tel: 01883 732 871
The children’s continence service is for children / young people who are not dry in the daytime and when you have tried all the advice from early toileting advice and support.
Some children may 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.
You can talk to your local health visiting or school nursing teams, special school nurses or contact your GP for a referral to the children's continence service or make a referral yourself through the One Stop Referral Service.
Following a 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 4 years 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.
If you need to contact the children's continence team, please call 07713 094 697.