About us

The children’s physiotherapy team provides services for children and young people with symptoms and conditions which limit their physical movement, abilities, development and function.

When your child is referred into our team, we will review the information and identify which clinic is most appropriate. You will be contacted by the admin hub to arrange an appointment. At the appointment a full assessment will be completed with a qualified physiotherapist.

We have a Resources and links page, with lots of support materials for families.

As a team, we run three different assessment clinics:

  • Musculoskeletal clinics are for children between 5 - 16 years old, who may be experiencing an injury, after sustaining a fracture or for unexplained pain relating to movement or activity. 
  • Children’s assessment and treatment clinic (CAT clinic) is for children of any age with a gross motor developmental delay. 
  • Joint assessment / community input is for children between 0-18 years who may have a more complex diagnosis or physiotherapy needs and are more likely to require input in home and school settings. Your initial assessment will be completed by the multi-therapy team based at Ham. 

Once you have had your assessment, it is likely that your physiotherapist will advise you on what exercises or activities you can do to help support your child. You may also be referred into one of our treatment groups.

We offer a selection of multi-therapy and physiotherapy lead groups for children of all ages, as well as aquatic therapy sessions based at Teddington Pool. Your allocated physiotherapist will be able to give you more information about these groups. 

We also run three orthotics clinics per month with the orthotics team based in Queen Mary's Hospital and quarterly clinic with an orthopaedic surgeon at St George's Hospital.          

Where we work

We are based in Ham Clinic but we work from a variety of settings in and around the Richmond borough.

Musculoskeletal clinics are held at Ham Clinic, Teddington Memorial Hospital and Centre House. Specialist multi-therapy clinics are run with our orthotics and orthopaedics colleagues in Queen Mary’s Hospital.

We provide physiotherapy input at Strathmore and Clarendon schools, the boroughs specialist education settings. There are also situations where we go to a child’s school or nursery to assess or treat, and provide support to the wider educational team.

We've made a short video about visiting Ham Clinic, which you can watch with your child: 

Meet the Team

Julie Hale - Divisional Manager

Claire Schneider- Clinical Service Manager for Children’s Therapies

Julie Knox - Specialist Paediatric Physiotherapist and Team Lead

Referrals

Referrals will only be accepted for children and young people with a Richmond GP and consent is obtained from parent or main caregiver and their primary needs are health related. 

However, for children and young people with an EHC plan, provision that is related to supporting their special educational needs and therefore needs to be delivered in school, can only be seen if they have a Richmond or Kingston address.

Please use the Richmond Children’s Physio Referral Form.

Please return the referral to:

  • Children’s Therapy Services Admin Hub, Teddington Health and Social Care Centre, 18 Queens Road, Teddington, TW11 0LR
  • Telephone: 020 8891 8195
  • Alternatively, referrals can be made by email to: HRCH.Childrens-Therapies@nhs.net if sent from an 'nhs.net' account.

To minimise the impact of missed appointments, which increase waiting times for other, we have a strict non-attendance policy:

  • Initial appointments: If you do not attend your booked initial appointment, without contacting the service beforehand, you will be discharged immediately.
  • Follow-up: If you do not attend your follow up appointment, without contacting the service beforehand, you will be given 10 days to contact the department before being discharged.
  • Groups: If you do not attend two consecutive sessions, without contacting the service beforehand, the remaining group appointments will be cancelled and you will be referred back to your therapist.