To visit our general transition homepage click  here.

Transition in the cleft service 

We want to help you feel confident living with your cleft condition and to make sure that you have all the information that you need to help you feel supported as a young adult.

As you become more independent and able to manage your health, we will help you to do so by talking to you about the following topics

• Who you can contact if you have any questions 
• Taking control of clinic appointments by asking questions and spending time with members of the cleft service by yourself
• Having more say in decisions about your health care 
• Making the right choices and living healthily 
• Any on-going care and treatment which you would like to consider with the cleft team.
• Information and reminders about the importance of caring for your teeth
• The genetics of cleft conditions and planning for a family in the future 
• Staying in the adult hospital

As a cleft service we routinely see you at age 10, 15 and 20 years old; depending on your age, we discuss some or all of the above topics.

We will support you and your family with any questions or concerns that you might have about anything to do with your cleft condition. You can also find out more about the South West Cleft Service here.

To help with the transition of learning to manage a health condition more independently and move to adult services our young people have worked together to create a number of guides, not just for young people but for parents and carers too.   You can find the young persons guide here and the parents and carers guide here.  Moving to adult services looks different for every speciality so your team can talk to you more about what it is like in the cleft service.

Communicating more in   your appointments is an important part of becoming more independent in managing your health and you can find a guide written by young people to support you with this here too.