AHP Conference - Allied Health Professionals (AHPs) in Neonatal Care
Allied Health Professionals (AHPs), including dietetics, speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, and physiotherapy, is a growing workforce in neonatal care. AHPs are integral to supporting the infant and their family during and after admission to a neonatal unit. We carry out assessments and interventions that help infants with their development from the very start of life, whether it is optimising their nutrition, supporting their muscles and brain growth with supportive positioning, promoting feeding and pre-feeding skills, nurturing a positive sensory environment, and providing support and information to parents, to name but a few.
Holistic Care at Simpsons NNU
In Simpsons NNU, we are lucky to have representation from all four of the Allied Health Professions and with the support of the Best Start maternity and neonatal plan, we hope that this will continue and grow in the coming years.
National Neonatal AHP Conference 2023
With support from Simpsons Special Care Babies, three of the Simpsons AHP team were able to attend the National Neonatal AHP conference in London in September 2023. Lesley (speech and language therapy), Kathryn (one of our dieticians) and Alison (occupational therapy) were grateful for this fantastic opportunity to meet other AHPs from around the UK, to hear about best practice and innovative ways in which AHPs support infants and families, and to hear presentations from all four Allied Health Professions.
Knowledge Sharing and Professional Growth
We learned about quality improvement projects that AHPs have led on to reduce pain during and after ROP screening, introducing a model of 4-year neonatal follow up, palliative care recommendations and updates and innovative practice and advances in the treatment of babies born with HIE. We were so proud to be able to support Hilary and Fiona, our two wonderful physiotherapy colleagues, who presented about Quality Improvement in neonatal care and delivering therapeutic interventions in low-income settings, respectively. We were also pleased to support Fiona in presenting a poster about the moderate-preterm neonatal follow up that we have piloted in Edinburgh.
Gratitude for Support
Thanks to the support of Simpsons Special Care Babies, we have all returned from the conference full of ideas and inspiration about how we can develop and improve the care that we offer to the infants and families of Simpsons NNU and have got started on some new and exciting projects already! We are grateful to have support from the charity to attend important and valuable conference and events such as these and would like to extend our thanks to all those involved in making this trip possible.
Lesley, Kathryn and Alison