Our new Rainbow Development Service (RDS) at CRH was jointly opened on Monday 14 December by Chief Executive Owen Williams and a family who have been using our services for nine years.

The redesigned and refurbished update of the former Child Development Unit at CRH will also care for youngsters previously treated Ellerslie Centre, Princess Royal Community Health Centre in Huddersfield.

Owen said “Opening this new service is a fantastic moment for our Trust. We’ve talked to a lot of people along the way about what they wanted from it. But we also wanted to remember to care for the carers who have to support their children along the way.

“This has been a good example of blending scrutiny with new intent, without throwing out what works well. Much of the work to make this new service happen has gone on in the background.  This is a prime case of colleagues living by one of our four pillars and really working together to get results – it’s a really fantastic achievement”.

Time has been taken to listen to what families wanted and the service design is based around this.  We’ve used the colours of the rainbow to ensure a bright, stimulating and child friendly environment was created.

General Manager for the Children’s Directorate Gill Harries said “We really wanted to focus on service becoming a single centre of excellence, and we’ve listened to all the feedback from parents and service users about what they wanted.

“I’m pleased we’ve been able to make changes such as offering our service 52 weeks per year, rather than term-time only. We’ll also be offering amongst other things a play and stay group for families of children with similar needs and making sure there is allocated parking for families”.

Around 160 children with additional needs will receive therapeutic and clinical care and amongst the facilities are a sensory room, therapy rooms, clinic rooms and a family room. The unit also has two hoists which are now linked to a weighing system.  The ability to accurately weigh children with disabilities will be something all paediatric services within the Trust can benefit from.