Trust reaccredited for UNICEF Gold Baby Friendly Award
The Trust is delighted that its 0 - 19 years Children and Young People's Services (CYPS) have been reaccredited for the prestigious UNICEF Gold Baby Friendly Award, for the fifth year running.
We are one of only two NHS Trusts in the East Midlands to have achieved the Gold Award, with Nottinghamshire being the only area to have both health visiting services and Family Hubs accredited to Gold standards.
The Gold Award is a nationally recognised mark of quality care and part of the UNICEF UK Baby Friendly Initiative (BFI). It recognises the support offered to all families to enable them to meet their feeding goals, develop close and loving relationships with their baby and experience a positive journey along the way, thus ensuring that all babies get the best possible start in life.
Accreditation is built on evidence-based UNICEF standards that are implemented in stages, providing a roadmap for transforming care. The award also includes a sustainability assessment, that evidences the implementation of the BFI standards in a way that is both effective in the short term and sustainable over time.
Alison, Jo, Theresa, the Trust's Infant Feeding Leads said, It's fantastic that we have once again achieved the Gold Award, highlighting the hard work and dedication of not only our infant feeding leads but also our Health Family Teams, who provide support for mums and families across Nottinghamshire.
Collaboration and close partnership working with Family Hubs has also enabled us to lead the way in creating a positive cultural change in attitudes towards breastfeeding. This includes working together to deliver volunteer peer support training, provide local BABES breastfeeding groups in each district and co-delivering the Breastfeeding Friendly in The Community Scheme with the Trust, Nottinghamshire County Council and district councils.
Staff in the CYPS are also supported to attend training, and the culture around breastfeeding and how we deliver an effective service is positive.
Raman Kaur, Associate Director of AHPs, Nursing and Quality, Baby Friendly Guardian said, I am delighted that the efforts of both our Infant Feeding Leads and Healthy Family Teams have been recognised to achieve Gold reaccreditation for the CYPS. The Gold Award shows that our services properly embed the Baby Friendly Initiative and Achieving Sustainability standards and that they also have leadership, culture and systems in place to maintain this for future generations of babies, their mothers and families.
My role as Baby Friendly Guardian enables me to protect and promote breastfeeding support at a senior management level and help the service to make links across the wider Trust.
As a result of achieving these awards, breastfeeding rates have increased in Nottinghamshire in the last six years - in 2017/18 38% of all babies born were breastfed at six weeks of age and BFI have commended the service for achieving 50.4% in 2024/25, with 73% of parents who started breastfeeding still breastfeeding at six weeks.
Traditionally, breastfeeding rates in more deprived areas of Nottinghamshire are lower but the service has seen increases in Bassetlaw, Mansfield and Ashfield of 5%, 10% and 13% respectively since 2017/18.
The success is testament to the support offered to families by the Healthy Family Teams, Family Hubs, BABES groups and the amazing volunteers who co-facilitate these sessions, as well as the specialist infant feeding leads who are certified lactation consultants and lead on the BFI project as well as offering specialist clinics across the county for those with more complex feeding issues.
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