Neonatal clinical excellence network: the 10-year journey

Annie Aloysius and Michelle Sweeting reflect on the decade-long experience of running the SLTs in Neonatal Care clinical excellence network (CEN).

Whether you’re already a part of a CEN or are thinking of forming one, their journey offers valuable insights and inspiration about creating and maintaining a network and what groups can achieve together.

Where it started

Neonatal care is still a relatively niche part of speech and language therapy. We still spend a lot of time explaining why a speech and language therapist (SLT) might be involved in neonatal care: that’s even within our own profession. Our journey started over a decade ago as members of a different CEN, specialising in paediatrics with a subgroup focused on acute hospital care. This network helped many SLTs and acknowledged those working in hospitals with very different caseloads. As part of this group, it became increasingly clear to us that neonatal intensive care was a speciality which was very different in practice to acute paediatrics.

We found there was a growing group of people working in neonatal care or interested in the speciality, but there wasn’t a network to support them. Around that time, we heard about an allied health professional group supporting this kind of work in the USA.

We have a formal process for registering a CEN. Visit the CEN section of our website for more details

We were inspired, so we sent a simple email to former RCSLT CEO, Kamini Gadhok, outlining gaps in this clinical area and requesting support from the RCSLT to form a CEN. We hosted our founding meeting at White Hart Yard on 4 July 2014, and we’ve been running ever since.

Keeping the CEN running

When we established the CEN, we wanted to keep an open mind as to what shape the group would take. At our founding meeting, there was a focus on welcoming everyone to share their experiences. We identified gaps in support for SLTs working within the specialism and formed a shared action plan.

One of our first objectives was to measure the current speech and language therapy service provision and staffing for neonatal care across the UK. This data was used to write staffing recommendations, calculate banding and the number of SLTs needed across all levels of neonatal care. These staffing recommendations have been used in national neonatal care reviews to benchmark provision and advocacy for SLTs in neonatal units. It has led to NHSE funding in England.

One of our first challenges was the lack of teaching, training, and course materials available. To address this, we worked with the RCSLT to make best-practice and scope of practice documents available to members. We then contributed to work on competencies, adapting the paediatric dysphagia competencies to make suitable neonatal care competencies. We are currently continuing this work to align with the RCSLT’s guidance on eating, drinking and swallowing.

We also established our popular annual “Hot Topics” series as a platform for sharing and discussing the latest research and offering teaching from experts in clinical practice.

As the CEN grew, we formed working groups prioritising quality improvement such as, workforce, education, outcome measures, research, and social media and communications. These active groups are one of the real strengths of our CEN. Now, we meet regularly to tackle challenges and share updates. Our virtual meetings every six weeks on Teams keep us connected and motivated.

As we’ve grown over time, we’ve expanded regionally and across the nations as well. Initially, we had a southern England focus, but over the years, we have committed ourselves to ensuring all four nations are represented at our meetings and in our CEN. Despite differences in health structures across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, our shared goals unite us.

Looking ahead

Much has changed in neonatal care over the past decade thanks to our vibrant CEN community. We’re happy to be raising the profile of neonatal speech and language therapy in an exciting and passionate way. We’re proud to see more students aspiring to become neonatal SLTs and joining our CEN. The heart of our success as a CEN lies in the relationships we’ve built, our shared passion for neonatal care and common goal of supporting infants and families.

If you’re interested in joining the SLTs in Neonatal Care CEN, visit their X @neosltcen or contact Annie Aloysius at annie.aloysius@nhs.net.