The Institute of Health Visiting has recently launched a number of Covid-19 advice documents that are designed to provide helpful information to frontline health professionals.
The aim is to support the “safe and effective delivery” of health visiting during what is an unprecedented crisis in modern history.
Health visiting practices clearly have had to change in the midst of this global pandemic. Guidelines such as this are vitally important and need to be followed.
A team at the institute has worked in partnership with Public Health England to create the guidelines, however, the same advice can be followed by health visitors all over the world.
The advice also covers “virtual” visits, widening the scope considerably in line with the changes that we are seeing in terms of visiting healthcare.
The institute of health visiting said in a statement:
“We are delighted to launch a series of COVID-19 professional advice documents today to support the safe and effective delivery of health visiting practice during the global pandemic.
These resources have been developed in partnership with Public Health England by the professional team at the Institute of Health Visiting. We hope that you will find them helpful as we all change the way we work in response to the Government’s “Stay at Home” advice.”
This professional advice to support best practice during the Covid-19 crisis includes documents focused on four aspects of care:
- Antenatal contact,
- New birth visits,
- Virtual contacts by health visitors, and
- Health work with vulnerable families.
The institute also states that they will be publishing professional advice on perinatal mental health in the coming days.
Due to the “rapidly changing” nature of the outbreak, the information will be updated regularly. Despite the fact this is intended for UK based healthcare professionals, the advice can be heeded by anyone working in health visiting nature, where current restrictions are in place.
There are also new pages on the institute website that are free to access. These are designed to help both nursing staff and the public during the pandemic.
