Pregnancy can be an exciting but sometimes worrying time and at the moment, women may need extra reassurance that it's safe to visit their doctor, midwife or clinic for antenatal care.
That's why it's vitally important in all areas of practice, to have up-to-date information and evidence-based guidelines, so our patients can be confident that we are well-informed and well-prepared.
While it’s important to provide support to patients during this challenging time, it’s also important that clinicians look out for each other. Check in with your colleagues to make sure they’re ok and importantly, make sure you’re ok.
Health and Social Policy (HSPB) will provide an opportunity for sharing of ideas, strategies, local solutions and concerns with respect to COVID-19 pandemic preparedness.
The community of practice is multidisciplinary and includes representation from all districts, relevant networks and pillars. It enables clinicians and clinical managers in maternity, NICU, special care nurseries and child and family health services from all districts and networks to provide guidance to the system, and to escalate matters that require a statewide or system response.
The aim of the community of practice is to:
The community of practice has a number of elements that include:
Health and Social Policy will:
Escalate issues with system implications raised by the community of practice to Strategic Reform and Planning. Key information will be collected and distributed through MOH-COVID19-ClinicalAdvice@health.nsw.gov.au, which will be monitored by Strategic Reform and Planning.
Collated issues/advice will be escalated by Ms Willcox, Deputy Secretary through to the Public Health Emergency Operations Centre (PHEOC) and/or the State Health Emergency Operations Centre (SHEOC) as appropriate.
PHEOC and SHEOC responses will be provided to Strategic Reform and Planning and then to the community of practice secretariat(s) for reporting back to the COP.
Weekly community of practice Updates will be provided to NSW Health Chief Executives.
Each community of practice will have a clinical lead appointed by Deb Willcox, Deputy Secretary, Health System Strategy and Resources.
The clinical lead will:
A group which is able to endorse statewide changes or make decisions that impacts a unit or system or allocate funding to recommendations.
This community of practice is open to Medical, Nursing and Clinical Network Leaders and Managers working in Maternity, NICU, Special Care Nurseries, and Child and Family Health. As a minimum it will include representation from all districts and networks. However, with consideration membership may be extended more broadly to include all interested NSW Health staff as well as professional colleges, private providers/clinicians and other non-government organisations as appropriate to the clinical speciality.
To join the community of practice participants should email: MOH-MaternityNICU-SCN-CFH-COVID-19@health.nsw.gov.au.
The community of practice holds a joint meeting with the NICU, Special Care Nurseries and Child and Family Health Communities of Practice.
Community of Practice members will be notified of any upcoming Community of Practice broadcast which will continue to be scheduled on a Thursday from 9:00am. The Maternity, NICU, SCN and Child and Family Health Community of Practice Coordination Team continue to monitor the COVID-19 situation in New South Wales and Australia. Any relevant information will be shared with Community of Practice members as soon as practicable on our Sharepoint site.
