The Care Group delivered the Tower Hamlets’ School Health and Wellbeing Service from 2018 until 31 March 2025. From 1 April 2025, Compass, an experienced provider of school nursing services, began delivering the service, and we continue to work with them as partners in delivering health services to children and families in the borough.
The school health and wellbeing service provides support in primary and secondary schools across Tower Hamlets, supporting the physical, mental and emotional health of children, young people and families in the community. The team, made up of nurses, nursery nurses and support workers, carried out hearing, vision and height and weight screening for reception children, and a further height and weight screening for year 6 children.
In the seven years of hosting the school health service in Tower Hamlets we acknowledged many highlights and excellent care. Here we reflect upon just some of the performance and achievements during that time.
2018-2020: Contract begins
Initially, the main focus was to get staff in place to ensure all schools could be covered by the service and to build strong relationships with schools, teachers and students.
2020-21: The pandemic and school closures
The service was affected by school closures during the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly during the period from March 2020 through to July 2021. The team embraced digital technology during this time to enable children and young people to continue to be supported.
The School Health and Wellbeing service, together with Tower Hamlets Children’s Services and Public Health won the Health Service Journal Partnership Award in 2021. The award was for innovation in creating a "Family-Focused Multi-Agency Shielding Support for Clinically Extremely Vulnerable Children" programme during the pandemic.
2021-2023: Post-Covid recovery
The service relaunched in 2021 with improved staffing levels. New modes of working were brought in, such as staff webinars to raise awareness of different medical conditions for staff, a texting service for young people trialed during the pandemic.
2023-2025: Extending reach and access
During this period, the team introduced drop-in sessions for parents in community venues within Tower Hamlets. These sessions allowed parents the chance to discuss topics such as family health, nutrition and wellbeing with the team
Working in partnership
Over the course of the seven-year contract, the team worked extensively with partners above and beyond schools and pupils. Partners included Tower Hamlets Public Health team, with whom the team worked, such as ensuring vulnerable families received appropriate and accessible information and support for vaccinations and wider family support. Post-Covid, School Health and Wellbeing worked with Public Health to smooth the reintegration of students back into schools and provided mental health support.
Other partners include Safe East, GPs, dentists, youth services, children’s social care and Family Hubs.
Service performance
Service levels performed mostly above target, with 91.5% performance for vision screening, above a 90% target in 2023/24. Hearing screening was at 94%, above a target of 90% in 2023/24. National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) performance for reception age children, was above the 95% target in 2022/23, at 95.6%, but dipped below that level at 92.3% in 2023/24. NCMP performance for year six children was above the 95% target, at 95.4% in 2023/24.
The service also delivered a range of other activities to help reach children and their families with health and wellbeing information. The team delivered 153 drop-in sessions, 740 health promotions sessions, and 32 coffee mornings during 2023/24.
How to contact Compass: New Tower Hamlets School Health and Wellbeing Service provider
The Compass School Health and Wellbeing Service can be contacted as follows:
Email: [javascript protected email address]
Phone: 020 3954 0091
Tower Hamlets School Health Service
Eastside Youth Centre
6 Parnell Road
London E3 2RB
The Care Group continues to deliver our Health Visiting and Family Nurse Partnership services with our children and family provision.
