Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP) has retained the UNICEF Baby Friendly - Achieving Sustainability (Gold) Award.

This award celebrates excellent and sustained practice in the support of infant feeding and parent-infant relationships, helping services to embed baby friendly care in their workplace for the long term.

All three localities within our HSCP submitted the revalidation report to UNICEF as a city together for the first time. The report highlighted the high standard of work delivered across our HSCP in relation to the baby friendly standards.

Despite staffing challenges across teams, it was demonstrated that ongoing support to families around infant feeding and maintenance of the standards was a high priority for all staff.

Janice Moodie, our HSCP’s Infant Feeding Advisor said: “We’re delighted that across the city, breastfeeding rates at 6 to 8 weeks have increased from 43.3% in 2018 to 47.5% in 2022. In the 15% most deprived data zones across the city, improvements have been even more marked, with overall breastfeeding rates at 6 to 8 weeks increasing from 34.9% to 41 %. 

“These improvements can have a significant impact on potential health outcomes of our population and are particularly impressive considering the challenging years of the global COVID-19 pandemic.” 

The report also celebrated the third year of the HSCP’s Breast Pump Loan Scheme across the city, which has given at least 433 mothers access to an electric pump and 300 to have access to a hand-held pump. Evaluation has shown high satisfaction levels with the scheme, which has enabled mothers in the city to continue to provide their babies with breastmilk for longer. 

One Glasgow Mum said, “The pump was really useful and helpful to establish breastfeeding especially at the beginning.” 

The Glasgow City Telephone Support Service was also celebrated in the report. The service offers breastfeeding support to both antenatal and postnatal families. Between April 2022 and January 2023, 168 women engaged with the service, and the data indicates that 75% of these women were still exclusively breastfeeding at 6 to 8 weeks. Women from ethnic minority groups accounted for 22% of supported women.  

Another Glasgow Mum said: “The telephone support given was so valuable to a new mum who didn’t quite know what she was doing at times. Thank you.”

Within the revalidation result, Janet Dalzell, Professional Lead for Scotland, UNICEF UK Baby Friendly Initiative, commented: “Glasgow City HSCP is highly commended for the quality of the evidence submitted and the thorough way in which the necessary processes, to embed and further develop care related to the baby friendly standards has been planned and implemented.”
“The portfolio submission was impressive, demonstrating clear leadership, accountability and responsibility . . . There is strong evidence of a culture that values feedback from staff, mothers and families.”

Over 50% of staff from Health Visiting and Family Nurse Teams completed the Baby Friendly staff culture audit as part of the revalidation process. The overall outcome of the survey was extremely positive with 84% of staff stating that baby friendly standards are very valued within their service and 98% agreeing that there is a culture of kindness towards women and families. 

One staff member commented: “Our HSCP’s Children and Families service is compassionate and caring.  This is practiced from senior management downwards and is impacting positively on teams and on the care given to families.”