The Neonatal Intensive Care (NICU) team has introduced a new way of keeping in touch with parents of babies being treated at St Peter’s Hospital. vCreate is a secure video messaging service that enables staff in Neonatal units to send photo and video updates to parents of premature and sick babies, for times when they are unable to be with their baby in the unit.
The NICU at St Peter’s Hospital started to use this platform in March and the team have been delighted with the way it has assisted them to keep parents in touch with their babies. vCreate has been especially effective during the past few months and has really helped the team to engage and communicate with parents during the COVID-19 visiting restrictions.
The team recently sent their 1000th photo update of beautiful baby Freya Locke who was photographed in her cot at 99 days old – her parents were extremely emotional when they saw this and cried (happy tears!) upon receipt.
Jo Willard, NICU Family Support Coordinator at St Peter’s Hospital has seen the benefits the messaging service has provided first hand; ‘It has been such a great way of keeping parents up to date with how their baby is doing, particularly throughout these months where visiting has been very restricted, but it is also really beneficial for circumstances where mum may be receiving treatment in another hospital and baby is with us. We’ve sent over 1300 photo updates and over 300 videos so far, so it has been a great communication tool for us.’
Pictured above is a member of the Neonatal Transfer Service by a NICU cot
