CLCH health visitors going for gold

The Health visiting Teams from Hammersmith and Fulham, Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea at Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust are working towards  the Gold ‘Achieving Sustainability’  Award for the Baby Friendly Initiative (BFI), run by UNICEF.

Baby Friendly  supports maternity, neonatal, health visiting and children’s centre services to provide the best quality breastfeeding support.

Services which implement the best practice standards receive the prestigious Baby Friendly award, which is a nationally recognised mark of quality care. 

The Good Food For London annual report, recognises BFI as a key indicator of boroughs commitment to a healthy food future.

Across London, CLCH health visiting services incorporate BFI into their work. With the HV teams in Hammersmith and Fulham, Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea having  already reached level three on their  journey through BFI,  they are  now aiming to be the first health visiting teams in London  to attain the Gold ‘Sustainability Award’.

Charlie Sheldon Director of Nursing and Patient Safety at CLCH, will be supporting the Infant feeding Leads as the Baby Friendly Guardian for the Trust to  ensure that staff are able to promote, protect and support the Baby Friendly standards, including compliance with the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes.

Charlie said: “Delivering quality services is the absolute priority  here at CLCH and ultimately this accolade will provide  a benchmark for breastfeeding support for  the families we work with.”

“We are all committed to supporting families and as a trust recognise the benefits of  breastfeeding.  I’m delighted to have been asked to be the guardian at clch and look forward to working with the  team as we go for gold!”

The Infant Feeding Leads will be working together with the HV teams through 2018 /19 to implement the standards for sustainability in order to  achieve the Gold award.