A new website, ‘Health for Under 5s’, has been launched by public health nurses from Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust (LPT). It provides trusted online information and guidance to support parents and carers.
Health for Under 5s was co-designed with families across Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland, and responds to their request for easier, digital access to information and advice from health professionals to complement face-to-face visits from public health nurses (health visitors).
The health promotion content on the Health for Under 5s site covers the period from pregnancy through to when a child starts school, featuring topics ranging from breastfeeding to potty training and sleep to speech development. There are also features about different aspects of family life as well as links to recommended resources and more specialist support.
The site has been designed to be fully mobile responsive, so can be easily accessed on the go, and will host regular webchats with health professionals on a range of topics: everything from potty training and good sleep routines to encouraging language development, learning and play. Throughout the site, users are also reminded that between 9am and 5pm Monday to Friday they can also get in touch with a public health nurse using LPT’s secure text messaging service, ChatHealth.
Janet Harrison, Head of Service, said: “I’m so pleased that the Health for Under 5s website is now in place, allowing us to provide comprehensive digital support for families – an important aspect of our Healthy Together 0-19 public health programme. All the content has been written with health professionals and in consultation with local parents, to ensure it is relevant, engaging and useful. We will review and update the website regularly, both in response to new public health guidance and in light of feedback from families. It’s so important that they have easy online access to current advice which they can trust, to complement face-to-face contacts with our Healthy Together teams.”
This short film gives tour of the site:
Families can also find out more by following the new Health for Under 5s social media accounts (Twitter, Facebook and Instagram): @HealthforU5s
Health for Under 5s completes the suite of award-winning websites that underpin support from Healthy Together, LPT’s public health programme for children, young people and families. Health for Kids targets children of primary school age, while Health for Teens is aimed at 11 – 16 year olds.
The Health for Under 5s website has been funded as part of our current contractual arrangements with Leicester City Council, Leicestershire County Council and Rutland County Council for the delivery of the 0-19 Healthy Child Programme.