Communicating about pupils in mainstream school with special health needs: the NHS perspective

Aim To add to previous research carried out with young people, parents and teachers, by investigating health staff’s perspectives on the difficulties, and possibilities for, achieving good communication with school staff with regard to children in mainstream school with a chronic illness or physical disability. Research design and methods A qualitative research study was carried out in one NHS Trust. Twenty semi‐structured interviews were carried out with a purposive sample of health staff to cover the spectrum of professionals who have responsibility for meeting the needs of children with a chronic illness or physical disability in mainstream schools (paediatricians, school doctors, school nurses, specialist nurses, health visitors, GPs, speech and language therapists, paediatric occupational therapists, paediatric physiotherapists, clinical psychologists and psychiatrists). Results The extent to which health professionals communicated with school staff, and the way in which they went about it, varied widely. Communication was facilitated by joint meetings, shared documentation, and local policy development. Sources of difficulty in communication between health and education staff were: the parent as a conduit of information; the practical difficulties of arranging meetings; and lack of knowledge about other professionals’ roles. The ethos of the school with regard to health matters, and the flow of information within health services, also had an impact on the communication process. Participants’ recommendations focused on two key issues: clarification of the roles of health and education staff with regard to this group of pupils; and how information should flow from health to school staff. Discussion Many of the findings parallel the previous research with teachers, indicating agreement between professionals from different agencies about aspects of the communication process which are problematic and require attention. The findings suggest that improving communication requires both joint work between health and education staff, and improvements to practice within each agency.