Children's sleep disorder service
Referring patients to Southampton children’s sleep disorder service
Referrals from primary care:
At secondary care level, Southampton children’s hospital accepts referrals from GP practices within Southampton City and South West Hampshire. The secondary care sleep service does not have capacity to accept referrals from GP practices outside Southampton City and South West Hampshire. GP practices within Southampton City and South West Hampshire can make referrals to the secondary care sleep service through a referral form hosted on the ardens platform. Please ensure that the public health nursing form is also completed and submitted alongside the GP referral form.
A referral to secondary care is recommended when there is a concern regarding a specific sleep disorder, including: circadian rhythm disorders, narcolepsy, other central disorders of hypersomnolence, sleep related movement disorders, very frequent/problematic parasomnias or chronic insomnia in the context of medical complexity or neurodiversity.
We recommend that the public health nursing team initially support children who present with chronic insomnia. It is anticipated that the sleep intervention support from the public health nursing team will be sufficient to address chronic insomnia in motivated families without medical complexity or neurodiversity. For this reason, referrals for neurotypical children with chronic insomnia in the absence of medical complexity or neurodiversity are not routinely accepted.
Referrals from Wessex paediatricians:
Southampton Children’s Sleep Disorder Service provides tertiary assessment and management of children referred by paediatricians in the Wessex Deanery. This includes the following services: Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Dorset County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Isle of Wight NHS Trust, Jersey General Hospital, University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust, Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust, Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust, Solent NHS Trust, Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust, St Richard’s Hospital and Frimley Park Hospital.
The tertiary sleep service aims to provide assessment and management of rare and complex sleep disorders, with common sleep disorders remaining under local secondary care services.
Long-term follow-up capacity in our clinic is very limited. Routine follow-up and management of individual patients will usually remain with the referring paediatrician.
The referral form is available here.
Referrals from CAMHS services within Wessex:
If CAMHS recommend a referral to the sleep service, we request that the psychiatrist makes the referral directly to the service, rather than asking the GP to make the referral.
The sleep service referral form for CAMHS to use is available here.
Referrals from beyond the Wessex Region:
The service has limited capacity to offer assessment and management for narcolepsy or other central disorders of hypersomnolence for referrals beyond Wessex. Please note it is absolutely essential the referring paediatric team remain actively engaged in a shared care model.
The referral form is available here.
Our research
We have an active research programme focusing on a number of different sleep disorders as well as treatment trials. Find out more about our research:
Training for health professionals
As well as offering a clinical service we train health professionals about childhood sleep disorders. Find out more.