Lisa McCormick, Melanie Farman, Leanne Havlin, Sally Ashton and Dee McGregor from the Perinatal Mental Health Team
Teams and individuals from the Trust’s Families Division took part in a special ‘marketplace’ event to promote their work to the public and other members of staff.
The well attended ‘Maternity Marketplace’ in the Women and Children’s Unit at Blackpool Victoria Hospital on May 14 demonstrated the great diversity of work carried out by the Families Division.
Teams including School Nursing, Patient Experience, Speech and Language Therapy, Midwifery, Neonatal Unit, Paediatric Diabetes, Health Visiting, Perinatal Mental Health and Clinical Skills had stalls in the entrance to the unit and there were talks by division leaders on the NHS Five Year Forward View.
Nicola Parry, Head of the Families Division, praised the staff and said they were leading the way in terms of working together to achieve the NHS’ strategic aims.
The event was linked to national Infant Mental Health Awareness Week with the hashtag #IMHAW17.
School Nursing team members Joelle Wrigley, Dolores Taggart, Brenda Eves, Donna Walsh and Jane Basey promoted the fact that their service tackles modern slavery, FGM, ‘growing up’, ‘healthy habits’, child abuse and other major issues.
Angie Foster, Lisa Fitzgerald, Shelley Piper and Jenny Clarke and many others promoted the Trust’s Maternity Unit. Lisa said the Fylde Coast Birth Centre at Blackpool Victoria Hospital has a diverse criteria for women and all women receive a personalised care plan. Lisa also promoted a device called a Cervical Ripening Balloon which helps to induce labour without the need for medication.
Maia Pelgrom from the Trust’s Clinical Skills team promoted training methods including the use of child mannequins so staff can learn how to work with children.
Becci Addey from the Trust’s Victoria’s Voice youth forum and Paediatric Patient Experience teamwas also at the event. Becci and the team are working on the ‘You’re Welcome’ pilot project with the Department of Health. In this project young people become like ‘inspectors’ and pinpoint ways of improving services. The team is also working with Lancaster University on a research project looking at way of turning patient engagement into evidence.
Ismail Dalal and Caroline McNicholas from the Paediatric Diabetes team explained how they had created an exciting new ‘transitional’ service for patients moving from the paediatric service to the adult diabetes service. Patients attend a Transition Clinic for a year and move to the adult service on their 19th birthday.
Louise Rylance from the Trust’s Children’s Speech and Language Therapy Service said the service covers many areas including helping children to make their needs known, working with children with special needs and working in schools and nurseries.
Health Visitors Dawn Clifton, Katherine Swann and Vicky Barkworth and Sarah Steward from the Neonatal Unit also promoted their services at the event.
School Nursing Team members Dolores Taggart, Donna Walsh, Joelle Wrigley, Brenda Eves and Jane Basey
Pauline Tschobotko addressing some of the participants
Becci Addey from the Paediatric Patient Relations team
Maia Pelgrom from the Clinical Skills team
Louise Rylance from the Children’s Speech and Language service
Ismail Dalal and Caroline McNicholas from the Paediatric Diabetes service
Dawn Clifto, Katherine Swann and Vicky Barkworth from the Health Visiting Team
Angie Foster, Lisa Fitzgerald, Shelley Piper and Jennifer Clarke