It has been identified that we are not consistent with the infant feeding advice that is provided to the service users.

This has been reported within:

• The 2017 Picker survey results where ‘women not receiving consistent advice’ was identified as a problem score and higher than the national average.  

• Meeting face to face with our service users at the Maternity Voice Partnership (MVP) group who highlighted communication issues around infant feeding.

•  Clinical audit around our infant feeding guideline identified inconsistencies around the infant feeding provision.  With little improvement being identified from previous audit findings.

An infant feeding strategy is currently being developed to outline the trusts commitment to infant feeding moving forward.  The strategy has been developed with multi-disciplinary approach where key stakeholders have included service users and staff members from each area.  

The money will fund training and resources in order for us to achieve the desired goal.  A robust training package, which is currently lacking, is required to support the development of workforce knowledge and ultimately a consistent approach to infant feeding for service users.  The roll out of this training needs to break down barriers to ensure all multi-professional care groups are working and learning in collaboration to reduce the incidence of women receiving mixed messages.

Our Proposal

Reduce the Picker survey score for women receiving consistent advice with infant feeding advice to the national average of 44% by 2020 through the infant feeding strategy. We will achieve this through:

• A multi-professional collaborative approach between care groups.

• Ensure the staff receive robust external evidence based infant feeding and relationship building training package, appropriate to their speciality, with a consistent approach.

• Identify multi-professional leadership through stakeholder analysis to provide a leadership by all approach to change, enabling appropriate staffing, resources and funding to support the implementation of the infant feeding strategy.

• Develop an audit tool to evaluate and monitor staff progress and the development of infant feeding training

• Identify provision of evidence based resources to support the delivery of care (for example – colostrum harvesting kits, leaflets, freezers on wards for storage).

• Identify infant feeding champions in each area to maintain the motivation for change and to offer a ‘go to’ for guidance and consistency.

In order to provide families with the support and advice required for their infant feeding journey NICE (2008) recommend investment into a robust training package for staff.  Identifying and providing robust evidence based infant feeding training across all multi-professional care groups will allow us to address consistent advice and reduce the risk of mixed messages. This will enable us to reduce our picker problem score regarding women reporting they receive inconsistent advice regarding infant feeding.

The benefit we hope to achieve?

• To provide high quality, compassionate maternity services through evidence based infant feeding advice and support in order to meet the needs of mothers and their families.

• Staff will feel more confident providing robust; evidence based care around infant feeding and will work collaboratively to support women. 

• Establishing a ‘leadership by all’ approach towards the planning, development and implementation of the improvement project in order to instil a sense of ownership and embed sustainability with the changes made.

The Picker Survey, which helps us to understand & improve patient satisfaction & experience of their healthcare, has provided a base line measurement and will be used to identify and monitor improvements moving forward.  This will be repeated year on year within the Picker Review annual reports. We will also monitor feedback contemporaneously via the Maternity Voice Partnership group.