Tory health spokesman Miles Briggs MSP has met with breastfeeding campaigners from the Edinburgh Breastfeeding Partnership and NHS Lothian, at Holyrood, to discuss improvements that can be made to breastfeeding services across Lothian.
There are a range of actions being taken by NHS Lothian to improve breastfeeding rates, including the recruitment of more health visitors, up skilling of Health Visitors and reviewing processes.
The most recent ISD figures show that NHS Lothian has 209 Health Visitors, with a Work Time Equivalent (WTE) of 179.2. This is from December 2017, so this number might have increased.
It was suggested in the meeting that NHS Lothian may have an additional 60 Health Visitors from the number in December 2017.
The biggest concern raised was for the new mothers that are not being given the support they need, falling through the cracks of the system, and what safety net there is to ensure this doesn’t happen. The mothers most likely not to get the support they need for breastfeeding are in less affluent areas.
The second biggest concern raised was the lack of training days for breastfeeding peer supporter to get NHS accreditation, so that they can provide community support for new mothers to breastfeed. These groups are very popular and provide a vital link between the health service, the community and normalising breastfeeding. Waiting times have been reported to be between a year and four years to get the accreditation.
Miles Briggs, Scottish Conservative Lothian MSP, said: “It proved incredibly worthwhile to meet with representatives from the Edinburgh Breastfeeding Partnership and NHS Lothian.
“NHS Lothian are working hard to make breastfeeding the norm in Lothian and it was very useful for them to hear from breastfeeding campaigners in areas that need to be improved on.
“I welcome the additional Health Visitors being recruited by NHS Lothian and this will undoubtedly improve the service, but no system is perfect and there will inevitably be new mothers not given the support they need.
“What I would like to see is a small specialist team of Health Visitor breastfeeding experts with an email address that health visitors or peer supporters can contact for new mothers who need that extra support.
“The second thing I would like to happen is for more regular breastfeeding accreditation courses to be made available, so that women who want to be peer supporters have the knowledge and NHS accreditation to give breastfeeding support within the community.”
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