Family-centred care

Providing family-centred care when babies born pre-term means that health professionals:

• recognise and value parents as being at the centre of the care process alongside their baby;
• respond to parents’ emotional, social and information needs by communicating clearly, and seeking informed consent for any treatment;
• show parents how they can care for their baby, and encourage them as they gradually become the main carers.

The POPPY project has produced a policy paper, Focus on families: family-centred care in the neonatal unit, which emphasises the need for family-centred care to be provided while their baby is in the neonatal unit and afterwards from community-based services, such as health visitors, GPs and children’s centres.

The paper is published in part 2 of Family-centred care in the neonatal unit, a summary of research recommendations from the POPPY Project together with a practical document addressing Indicators for the implementation of family-centred care.

The paper is based on findings from all three parts of the POPPY research. It draws on:

• the findings from a systematic review to identify effective interventions for communication, information and support while in a neonatal unit and in the early months after discharge home,
• qualitative research with more than 55 parents whose babies had been cared for in neonatal units, and
• a survey of all UK neonatal units about facilities, policies and practices relating to parents.

Papers from each of these studies will be published during 2009-2010. The policy paper was drafted by Maggie Redshaw and Karen Hamilton for the POPPY steering group, whose members met to agree the scope and commented in detail on the draft. It was edited by Mary Newburn.

Within the past decade, family-centred care has become a broadly accepted concept within neonatal and paediatric intensive care, and professional, and user organisations are promoting the need for integration of family-centred principles into standard practices and guidelines. The POPPY Steering Group would like all neonatal units and community-base services working with families of pre-term babies to review their services, involving local parents who have had a pre-term baby to see where changes could be made to support, inform and involve parents in an optimal way throughout the care pathway.

Family-centred care in the neonatal unit and afterwards