Busy time for Bliss

It's a busy time for Bliss. Earlier this month I was fortunate to be invited to attend a focus group meeting at the Cabinet Office to discuss the experiences of parents of premature babies with civil servants in the Prime Minister's strategy group. It was an interesting afternoon and we wait to see if anything good comes out of it.

A few days later, Bliss released the latest version of the Bliss Baby Charter Standards. This charter, first released in 2005 provides guidance and stresses the importance of family centred care in neonatal units. The charter lays out 7 guiding principles:

1. Every baby should be treated as an individual. "I have a name not a number!" This principle states that babies have the right to privacy, pain management, kangaroo care and limited levels of light and sound

2. Decisions are made in the baby's best interest. Informed decisons are made with full involvement of the parents as much as possible. Also suggests sufficient emotional support is provided to parents especially at difficult times

3. Babies receive adequate levels of care. This encompasses Bliss' 1:2:1 campaign for nursing levels and includes the need for staff providing support for breastfeeding, discharge planning, physios, social workers etc. This principle also calls for care close to the baby's home, and also the mother receives care in the same hospital

4. Continuous Improvement. Looks for monitoring and benchmarking of standards and improvement, particularly for family centred care.

5. Support and Information for parents. Includes tours of units, introductions to staff, facilities for parents to have down time and information on support networks

6. Promotion and encouragement of breastfeeding.

7. Coordinated, coherent discharge planning. From planning discharge, provision of facilities for rooming in through to post-discharge care and support.

Quite a lot there isn't there! At a later date I will revisit this but suffice to say for now that even things that you would expect to be in place automatically often aren't (no mother and baby aren't always in the same hospital, they certainly aren't guaranteed to be close to home and 1:2:1 nursing is a luxury few will experience at the moment). For now, visit the Bliss website to learn more.

Finally, Bliss launches its Annual (and 30th birthday!) report later this week at an event at the House of Lords. A future post will report in this event... :o)