Congratulations to the Neonatal team at Queen's Hospital Burton for achieving Bliss Baby Charter Gold accreditation
The Neonatal team at Queen's Hospital Burton has been awarded the Bliss Baby Charter Gold accreditation, which recognises exemplary care to the babies cared for in the unit and their families.
The team, which cares for babies who are unwell or have been born prematurely, is one of only 13 departments to achieve Gold accreditation out of 191 units in the UK.
The team has worked hard to achieve the high standard since it was awarded the Silver accreditation in November 2022, have focussed on improving the service further to meet the criteria for the Gold accreditation.
The Bliss Baby Charter was designed to standardise high quality family centred care across the UK and is a practical framework for neonatal units to self-assess the quality of family centred care they deliver against a set of seven core principles which include social, developmental and emotional needs, decision making, feeding and discharge.
In order to ensure all the hard work of units from registration to accreditation is appropriately recognised, the Baby Charter Programme is split into stages from self-audit all the way up to Platinum accreditation. To gain the Gold award the unit is subjected to an assessment visit from Bliss and external assessors to confirm the unit is of Baby Charter standard. Once Gold accreditation is awarded it lasts three years.
The team, which is led by Teresa Hurst, Deputy Senior Sister, worked collaboratively with parents and families of the babies in their care on the Neonatal Unit (NNU) to improve the service by implementing new audits and tools to help families understand their baby's journey and 'empower' them to make decisions.
Teresa said: "It is really important to us that parents are involved in the process and we ask for feedback from current parents that are using the unit and those who have used it in the past. They can shape what we do going forward.
"To know that the families we help have played such a big part in helping us get this recognition makes it even more special. Parents' mental wellbeing is so important and families who have had a baby on the unit can sometimes have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) so we have created a resource that showcases all the local support available to them for their mental wellbeing. We also have an outreach team that offers support to those families once they are discharged and settling back in at home."
Teresa said she feels incredibly proud of all the hard work that has gone into gaining the Gold Bliss award and it was a real team effort.
She said: "I would like to say a big thank you to all the team. I feel really proud that we achieved this award with all staff members helping towards this because without that quality of care engrained in our mission as a unit, we would not have achieved the award. To have helped create so many resources for parents to help them understand their babies cues and behaviour is really special. I am so proud of the team and how we all share the same vision and dedication to improving how we care for patients and their families."
Garry Marsh, Executive Chief Nurse, said the award is a testament to the commitment of the team who always strive to go above and beyond.
Garry said: "This is a wonderful achievement for colleagues who have continuously strived to deliver the best care for their patients and their families. The Bliss Baby Charter Programme is recognised nationally and is a benchmark for all neonatal units, so to be one of only 13 units across the UK to have been awarded the Gold accreditation is credit to our fantastic colleagues and their dedication to the communities we serve. On behalf of UHDB as a Trust, I can say we are very proud."