Based at the Porterbook Clinic, the Relationship and Sexual Service is a city-wide service providing assessment and treatment for service users with psychosexual problems.
Therapy is offered to individuals and partners over the age of 18 years. A variety of therapeutic approaches are used, and treatment is designed to fit the specific needs of service users.
The service is part of Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust.
Our service is committed to providing high quality care to all who access it. We respect and celebrate all sexual orientations and gender identities within our service; everybody is welcome.
All referrals, other than internal SHSC ones, should come via the GP. A referral form can be downloaded by clicking here.
GPs can download pre-referral screen guidelines by clicking here.
We do not accept self-referrals.
Occasionally, we receive referrals that are not suitable for our service. When this happens, we will advise the referrer of this. If this only becomes clear during the assessment, we will inform the referrer and service user, with recommended signposts to a service that may be more suitable to meet the service user’s needs.
The Relationship & Sexual Service sees service users with sexual dysfunctions as defined by the DSM-V. These are listed below:
Male Bodied Sexual Dysfunctions
Female Bodied Sexual Dysfunctions
Treatment is also provided for,
Service Users cannot be seen by the service where:
Once we have received a referral for you into our service, we will send you a background information questionnaire, where you will have the opportunity to provide us more specific information regarding your difficulties. We will invite you for an initial assessment, to find out more about the problems you are having and to check that the treatment we can provide is the right one for you. This is a detailed assessment, and the appointment will last one and a half hours. If we consider that you are suitable for psychosexual therapy, your name will be placed on our waiting list.
Psychosexual Therapy is a psychological intervention that is aimed to resolve the sexual difficulties that people experience in their lives. A range of different interventions can be used within this therapeutic approach including,
It is important to note that our treatment programmes require you to be motivated and committed to addressing your difficulties through the attendance of regular therapy sessions (usually held every two to four weeks) and the completion of the in between session tasks that you and your therapist will agree together in your sessions. You will never be asked to undertake a sexual task in a session.
As a psychosexual therapy service, we do not prescribe. We may recommend medicines or sexual aids that can be prescribed by your GP.
Katie and Jody explain what psychosexual therapy is.
If you cancel two consecutive appointments, or a number of intermittent appointments, or fail to attend an appointment, we will not be able to offer any further appointments.
If you cannot make an appointment, please let us know as soon as possible so we can offer your time to someone else.
Individuals we are booking into our service currently have had to wait seven to nine months for a first appointment.
Individual waiting times are variable, and we cannot give specific times for individual waits.
Please keep us updated of any changes to your contact details to ensure we can offer you an appointment when one is available for you. We would like to sincerely apologize for this situation and for any inconvenience or difficulty this may cause you.
If you are waiting for an appointment please take a look at this letter which outlines the support available while you are waiting.
Before your appointment with the service you might find it useful to read one of the leaflets below:
Appointments are available Monday – Friday between 9am-5pm.
We provide a hybrid model of face to face and online appointments. You can choose which type of appointment would suit you best.
The Relationship and Sexual Service offers a query line to any health professional who would like to seek consultation or advice regarding psychosexual issues that may be affecting service users they are working with.
The query line can be used for asking information about whether a referral is appropriate for the service, how to work with sexual issues a service user may be presenting with or for a more general enquiry.
If you would like to make use of the query line, please email randsporterbrook@shsc.nhs.uk or phone 0114 2716671, and we will be in contact to book a time for you to speak with one of our therapists.
Care Opinion is an independent organisation that gives you the chance share your experience of using our services, to help us make changes that benefit everyone.
We want you to share honest feedback about our services. Good or bad we want to hear what you think.
You can choose how much detail you want to go into about your personal story, but if there’s anything we could improve on we want to know.
You can give feedback by filling in the form below.
Porterbrook Clinic, Michael Carlisle Centre
75 Osborne Road
Sheffield
S11 9BF
United Kingdom
