Service Detail

We specialise in assessment and treatment of children and young people up to 18 years old that present at St. Thomas' Hospital.

Our team provide emergency psychiatric services in A&E for young people up to 18. This includes assessment and management of young people who present with self-harm, and other psychiatric emergencies such as psychosis.

We also providing support for neuropsychiatric emergencies on the paediatric wards, such as young people with severe agitation or those with delirium in the context of a range of medical and neurological conditions.

We offer diagnosis, assessment and treatment of psychological and psychiatric conditions in young people with physical illnesses such as Epilepsy, Diabetes, Asthma or Crohn's Disease.

Our team provide assessment and management of complex symptoms. Often young people have severe and disabling symptoms in which a medical cause has been hard to understand. These types of conditions may be described as Ômedically-unexplained', Ôfunctional', Ôpsychogenic', or Ôpsychosomatic symptoms'.

Many patients may suffer from underlying stress, anxiety or depression. There may also be systemic, family and psycho-social factors contributing to symptoms. We offer psychological treatments for these complex symptoms so that the young person is able to return to their everyday functioning and prevent further unnecessary medical investigations and treatments.

Our team see young people with a range of symptoms including: functional movement disorder, seizures, headaches, blackouts, functional gastrointestinal symptoms and chronic pain.

Our services:

• Addressing quality-of-life issues and negative psychological impact of living with a long-term, or chronic physical illness.
• Addressing family and psycho-social factors that affect the course and management of physical illness in children, including compliance issues with medication.
• Providing psychiatric assessment for young people with neurological conditions.
• Providing robust mental health and neuropsychiatric support to the complex neurodevelopmental disability service (covering autism and other developmental conditions), Tics/ Tourette and neurodevelopmental movement disorders service (TANDeM) and national sleep medicine service at Evelina London Children's Hospital.
• Education and training to paediatric staff across Guy's and St. Thomas' (GSTT) including updates on identifying and managing mental health issues.
• Consultation to paediatric medical teams to support management of complex cases.