Royal Surrey’s special care baby unit awarded Baby Friendly funding | News

Royal Surrey’s Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU) is proud to be one of just 18 UK neonatal units chosen to receive support from Unicef UK for the next three years to help them work towards a Baby Friendly Initiative (BFI) accreditation.

The selection is a cause for celebration as it means the unit will receive valuable help and training to enhance the baby feeding support it provides. The BFI standards also focus on giving families the best possible care to build close, loving relationships with their baby and encouraging parents to be as involved as possible in their baby’s care every step of the way.

As a result of being selected to take part in The National Neonatal Project, SCBU will receive assessment costs for this three-stage accreditation process, staff places on training courses and conferences, teaching materials and support from the Unicef UK Baby Friendly Team.

Fiona England, Practice Development Sister for SCBU, who put together the successful funding bid for the accreditation said: “Our Neonatal BFI Strategy group was formed last year, bringing together the experience of our maternity colleagues and the passion and determination of the SCBU team, to enhance the experience for families that need our care.

“At a time where Covid restrictions were putting up barriers, it felt more important than ever to focus on helping families to feel close to their new babies, and give them the best start.

“Royal Surrey has been on its BFI journey for a number of years and we had already achieved a Unicef Gold Standard for our maternity services but we were keen to bring SCBU in line with this. We’re thrilled that we will now get the support to achieve BFI accreditation for this.”

Amy Stubbs, Deputy Director of Midwifery and Divisional Head of Nursing for Women and Children, said: “This is exciting news for the SCBU team and they have done a brilliant job to be selected. I want to thank Fiona for all the hard work she put into making a strong application, as it’s an extremely competitive application process. We were up against around half of all the neonatal units in the UK, which were also vying for funding.

“We wholeheartedly believe that families who find themselves on the Special Care Baby Unit deserve appropriate support and recognition during their journey to help them grow as a family. Our vision is for all families to receive the same level of knowledge and support and to have the best information to make informed feeding choices and develop close and loving relationships.”