Paediatric team introduce therapies to aid patient care

Practice Development Nurses Steph Holmes and Louise Paramel

 

The Paediatric team at Blackpool Victoria Hospital have introduced some exciting new therapies as part of their care.

Caring Hands is a 12 month, National Lottery funded project that will aid patient care by providing a range of massage therapies to young patients both on the Children’s Ward and through courses in the community.

This Saturday, May 19, will see the first of the monthly one-to-one massage clinics held at the hospital for children with continual health needs.

Practice Development Nurse, Louise Paramel, said: “We got the idea of introducing the therapies from a combination of one of our play specialists, Gemma, seeing the benefits of massage at a conference and also through my previous experience as a nurse at Great Ormond Street.

“Although our divisional director backed the idea, we had no funds for training. That is when someone suggested the National Lottery.”

Children’s Ward staff with their practise babies

Louise applied for the funding last September and was delighted to learn that the project was granted £10,000 in January.

The money has gone towards training 10 staff, a mixture of nurses and play specialists, to become qualified as baby massage instructors, six to qualify in Indian Head Massage and Thai Hand and Foot massage and six to become baby yoga instructors.

Louise said: “The massage is given alongside medical treatment on the ward and is offered in our monthly clinics on a one to one basis. To book one of these sessions, children/parents can self-refer themselves and schools and community nurses can refer too. However, the patient does need to have ongoing health needs to qualify.”

Bethany Miller’s 10 month old daughter, Felicity, received some massage while on the ward.

She said: “Offering massage on the ward is a really good idea. My baby really relaxed and then fell asleep. I’ve now signed up for a five-week baby massage course as it will hopefully help her sleep at night.”

The team is also running a range of free baby massage courses at Thingamajigs Play Centre in Poulton. This is also available running alongside Child Health courses that cost £40 with all money going back to supporting care in the Children’s Ward.

Louise added: “Although we are six months into our 12 month project, we hope to receive further funding to extend the help we can give to young patients and their families.”

You can find further information on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Caringhands18 and Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Caring-Hands-Complementary-Therapy-222477734965263

 

 

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