ChatHealth - a text service for 11-19 year olds in Luton
Are you aged 11-19, living in Luton, and looking for health advice?
You can now text the Luton School Nurse Service on 07520 616070 to ask health related questions you might have including mental health, drugs, relationships, healthy eating and much more.
ChatHealth is an easy, confidential, anonymous way to ask questions about your health, and our Luton school nurse team will be there to answer your text from 9am to 4pm, Monday to Friday (except bank holidays). Please note, we will be closed on Monday the 19th of September due to the additional bank holiday.
Budding young rap artist Jayden, from Luton, has written and produced a rap for ChatHealth. The rap was created following a competition in February directed at young people to design a rap to encourage young people across Beds and Luton talk about relationships, bullying and healthy eating among other issues through direct, confidential texts with their school nurses.
Read the full press release about Jayden's rap here,
Jayden has also been on ITV Anglia re his ChatHealth rap - you can pick up the filming here - click here.
For schools and youth organisations
Would you like a member of our school nurse team to share further information on ChatHealth with young people at your school, health centre or youth organisation?
Let us know by emailing us on: ccs.bedsandlutonchildrenshealthhub@nhs.net
For parents
Share this page with your child if you think they might benefit from the ChatHealth service, and if they use social media, you can also direct them towards our Instagram, Facebook or Twitter for further information and updates.
Feedback
Do you have any questions, ideas or feedback about ChatHealth? Feel free to email our school nursing team on: ccs.bedsandlutonchildrenshealthhub@nhs.net
Confidentiality and safety disclaimer
We do not usually inform your parents, teachers or anyone else if you contact the school nurse. We might inform someone if we were concerned about your safety, but we would usually speak to you first. Your messages are stored and can be seen by other healthcare staff who follow the same confidentiality rules. We aim to reply to you within one working day and you should get an immediate bounce-back to confirm we received your text. Normal working hours are 09:00-16:00 Monday – Friday (except bank holidays), texts will not be seen outside of this time. If you need help before you hear back from us, contact a member of school staff, your GP, call NHS 111 or Childline on 0800 1111. And if it is an emergency, dial 999 or visit A&E. Our text number does not receive voice calls or MMS picture messages. We support messaging from UK mobile numbers only (which does not include messages sent from landlines, international mobile numbers and some 'number masking' mobile apps). To view our NHS privacy notice please internet search: “NHS CCS privacy notice” or use this link bit.ly/nhsprivacynotice. Prevent the school nurse from sending messages to you by texting STOP to our number. Please respect your school’s mobile phone policy. Messages are charged at your usual rate.
Did you spot our new ChatHealth design?
We recently ran a competition and invited young people from across Luton and Bedfordshire to design our new designs. We received loads of fantasic entries, and a selection of them can be found in the video below. The panel of young people chose a design by Andrea, aged 10 because they felt her poster captured the feel of ChatHealth from a young person’s point of view. Her winning poster is now being used as the face of the Luton and Beds ChatHealth campaign and is being displayed across our social media sites.