Preventing life threatening infection in UK babies

With more conferences booked up for the spring, it was time to call in the volunteers again to help with the preparations. They kindly helped us put together more information packs so that we could hand them out to the delegates – all health professional involved in maternity care.

February

Celia Sykes and Jane Grout attended the Maternity, Midwifery and Baby conference in London. This conference was for midwives and student midwives wishing to update their skills and knowledge around key topics including antenatal and postnatal care, labour and care of the newborn.   

This was a very busy and successful, one-day conference with around 500 midwives in attendance. 250 packs were handed out with lots more health professional signing up to our mailing list.

April

Jane Plumb and Oliver Plumb went to the UNISON Health Care Conference. UNISON is one of the UK's largest trade unions, with more than 1.3 million members. Many of those work in the NHS, and we had a diverse range of professionals interested in our materials. One microbiologist took an entire box of information packs back to his hospital. UNISON continues to support our work by distributing our information materials in their women's health packs. 

Jane Plumb and Celia Sykes attended the British Maternal & Fetal Medicine Society (BMFMS) conference towards the end of April. The charity's information materials and medical information packs flew off the stand at this event. The delegates attending the BMFMS conference were overwhelmingly in favour of routine antenatal testing for group B Strep - and several took the time to thank us for what we're doing in raising awareness and in providing "high-quality patient information."

May

Jane Plumb and Celia Sykes attended the Primary Care and Public Health Conference, a two-day conference in late May. Our information materials were very popular, and we ran out of medical packs halfway through the first day due to incredible demand. Luckily we had a GBSS staffer to replenish our stocks for day 2.Many of the midwives we spoke to were desperate for the GBS-specific ECM test to be made available, and encouraged us to keep campaigning. Lots of these midwives signed up to raise awareness in their local areas and be champions calling for national change. 

Also late in May, The UK Sepsis Trust ran Sepsis Unplugged. Jane Plumb and Oliver Plumb attended this two-day conference, another fantastic opportunity to raise awareness of group B Strep (and learn more a bit more about sepsis). Dr Ron Daniels, Chief Executive of The UK Sepsis Trust is very supportive of the charity's work.

What's next?

The summer period is quiet for conferences. The charity’s focus will be Group B Strep Awareness Month in July, and we'd love you to get involved in any way you can.

Please email us at info@gbss.org.uk, call 01444 416 176 or keep an eye on our website and social media pages for updates. After Group B Strep Awareness Month, the charity has several conferences to look forward to, including NCT's Babble Live! and annual conferences of the British Association of Perinatal Medicine, the Royal College of Midwives, the Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists Annual Professional Development.

Conferences cost us significant amounts of money, time and energy to attend. The awareness they raise among people who can make a real difference to preventing these infections and prompting early treatment in babies who develop these infections is priceless. They also keep the issue of group B Strep on the agenda – it is and should be a matter of national concern.

We rely on the generosity of our supporters to enable GBSS to attend these conferences. Please support us financially.