Huge congratulations to our Maternity Services across the Highland Council area who have been accredited as a Gold UNICEF UK Baby Friendly Service.
The UNICEF UK Baby Friendly Initiative enables public services to better support families with feeding and developing close and loving relationships so that all babies get the best possible start in life. By achieving gold status, midwifery services have demonstrated that they have sustainable leadership, a positive culture, ongoing monitoring and continued progression across services. This ensures that midwifery services continue to promote, protect and support breastfeeding and to support all mothers to build a close and loving relationship with their baby.
Everyone across maternity services has been working really hard to ensure the standards achieved have continued so there were a lot of delighted faces when UNICEF UK advised that gold had been awarded.
Isla Barton, Director of Midwifery for NHS Highland, said: “I am absolutely delighted that we have achieved gold. This is a real credit to everyone involved in the services and I’d like to say a huge thank you to them, and to Karen Mackay our Infant Feeding Advisor, who do such a fantastic job. We are really committed to continuing the good work.”
Karen Mackay, Senior Health Promotion Specialist and Infant Feeding Lead, said: “Achieving the gold accreditation for our midwifery services is a fantastic achievement for everyone involved and I want to thank everyone for their support with improvement projects and presence at training despite the huge workforce pressures everyone is experiencing.”
Writing to the team to confirm gold status, Anne Woods, Deputy Programme Director with UNICEF Baby Friendly Initiative, said: “I would like to pass on congratulations from everyone at UNICEF UK for this excellent achievement and for accreditation as a Gold Service.”