Members of BANNFU can now vote for their next president. BANNFU members have been sent an email which includes a voting form. Please return this email to the BAPM Office by 15 March indicating your preferred candidate. If you have not received your voting form please contact the BAPM Office.
Deadline: 15 March 2023
Presidential Candidates
Mrs Hilary Cruickshank
Lead Neonatal Physiotherapist NHS Lothian/ AHP representative on BAPM exec (to Sep 2023)
For over 20 years I have worked in neonates as a physiotherapist with a passion for follow up. Part of my role included establishing the current highly successful follow up service in Edinburgh. We use standardised assessments tolls including GM assessment to tailor our service. I support the Northern Prechtl Peer review group and feel very strongly that all high risk infants should be offered at least t+3 GM assessment. I strongly believe in early intervention and that starts on the NICU but must be carried over within follow up services, including the support and education for families to nurture their infants for the best possible outcomes. I have fought for years to have an MDT on our neonatal unit and we finally have OT, SLT, dietetics and PT on our unit, I am now leading the project to have neonatal AHP’s properly funded in all units in Scotland.
I believe in supporting and nurturing our future workforce both AHP’s and Doctors and ensuring cohesive working and mutual respect for what each profession brings to the table.
In the spirit of mirroring the development and leadership of AHPs in BAPM and within neonatal services across the UK, we ask you to support the importance of BANNFU having an AHP President especially at a time of growth in AHP services in neonatal care, especially in follow up.
Dr Frances O'Brien
Consultant Neonatologist, Oxford University Hospitals
I have a long-standing interest in neonatal neurodevelopmental follow-up; I was privileged to learn neurological and developmental assessment techniques from the late Dr Ann Stewart at University College London Hospital over 25 years ago and to undertake a period of research investigating outcomes of prematurity in childhood and adolescence.
As a consultant neonatologist in Oxford, I have developed and led the neonatal neurodevelopment follow-up service, completing comprehensive multidisciplinary 2-year developmental assessments for over 85% eligible babies.
I continue to have a research interest and am a co-investigator for the EveryPrem Project and supervising a PhD student evaluating a standardised neurodevelopmental screening tool for all children born preterm.
I was the Thames Valley representative on TRPG Outcomes group prior BANNFU, since which time I have co-chaired the BANNFU education and training sub-committee, organised the successful annual neurodevelopmental follow-up study days and contributed to webinars.
I have appreciated enormously working with BANNFU members, sharing ideas, exchanging opinions and striving to improve follow-up practices and outcomes. I would like to see more colleagues benefitting from this sort of collaboration. I would also continue BANNFU’s ethos to work with parents and ex-preterms to ensure that our aims are relevant to them. As a mother of a very preterm baby, now an adult and interested himself in long-term effects of prematurity, I think it is important that suitable information about longer term outcomes (including education challenges, neurodiversity and mental health outcomes) is available and that relevant professionals in health and education services are well-informed.
Dr Audrienne Sammut
Consultant Neonatologist, University College Hospital
My vision for BANNFU for the next 3 years is to ensure that neurodevelopmental follow-up services and early intervention are made available for all high-risk infants, from discharge until pre-school age. As president, I would continue to ensure that a strong collaboration is maintained between members of the executive committee, workstreams and external organisations, to deliver ongoing projects as well as support new ones.
The clinical service provision workstream has mapped out current national resources. With the right IT support, we can build a website and social media accounts, for healthcare professionals and families to have access to this information. Our parent representatives can then set up a peer support platform for families across the UK. By increasing BANNFU’s presence across the neonatal community, we can drive networks to endorse follow-up co-ordinators and ensure that local practice is surveyed and standardised. This would facilitate the ongoing work of the data management workstream. The education and training workstream have already highlighted the importance of liaising with the RCPCH to provide training packages for fellowships in neurodevelopment. Having recently been a trainee myself, I would be able to advise the team on this. I would liaise with BAPM to run an annual conference on neurodevelopment, so that our research workstream can showcase their work as well as promote BANNFU.
My personal qualities include being organised, resilient and hard-working. Even though I have just started building my career in neurodevelopment, I am incredibly enthusiastic and motivated to improve neurodevelopmental follow-up services through BANNFU.
Voting instructions have been emailed to all BANNFU members. To submit your vote, email [email protected] by the deadline: 15 March.