Baby Friendly Initiative praises local health visiting service
23 July 2024
The Health Visiting Service in Hywel Dda University Health Board (UHB) has maintained its accreditation as a ‘Baby Friendly’ facility, following an assessment by the Unicef UK Baby Friendly Initiative.
The Unicef UK Baby Friendly Initiative supports breastfeeding and parent infant relationships by working with public services to improve standards of care.
The team, who provide health visiting services across Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire, were commended for their work, achieving a 100% pass mark in many of the Initiative’s national standards for infant feeding.
Sharon Daniel, Interim Executive Director of Nursing, Quality and Patient Experience at Hywel UHB, said: “I’d like to congratulate the team on this wonderful achievement.
“We are proud to have a team committed to ensuring our children have the best start in life and the work they have done to achieve this prestigious accreditation has been in addition to their day-to-day responsibilities.”
The local health visiting service has a small infant feeding team, supported by health visitors, community staff nurses and assistant practitioners.
The assessment process is overseen by a panel of impartial experts in the field of breastfeeding and neonatal care, including representatives from paediatrics, midwifery, health visiting and voluntary organisations.
Service users were also interviewed by the Baby Friendly Initiative panel, with feedback including 100% satisfaction with the compassionate care and support received from the service.
One service user said about a member of the team: “She is a person that genuinely cares about her job and the people she works with…very good communications skills. My baby is six weeks old and I’ve had four home visits so far and she is coming again on Monday.”
The team were also commended for their excellent training programme and audit process.
The Baby Friendly Initiative, set up by Unicef and the World Health Organisation, is a global programme which provides practical and effective ways for health services to improve the care provided for all mothers and babies.
In the UK, the initiative works with public services to protect, promote, and support breastfeeding, and to strengthen mother-baby and family relationships.