Greater Manchester midwives have been crowned the best in the country after delivering an exceptional performance in Unicef’s ‘Baby Friendly’ accreditation tests.
The University of Salford’s Midwifery Directorate received the UK’s highest ever mark by Unicef when they retained the charity’s Baby Friendly accreditation.
And Salford became the first university in the country to pass first time round after the children’s organisation imposed new regulations.
Salford has held the programme, which was created to improve standards of care and give support to breastfeeding mums and help parent-infant relationships, since 2012.
Anne Leyland, lecturer in midwifery, said: “We are incredibly proud to have retained our Unicef Baby Friendly accreditation as not only will it raise the university’s profile in the health sector, it will also, more importantly, give our graduates a boost when they search for full-time employment.
“We now have other universities, who are also seeking the same accolade, coming to us for advice on how we conduct our teaching so that they can transfer our skills to their own, and that speaks volumes as it shows the qualities of our course are being recognised by our peers.”
Unicef has recently implemented a new set of standards that universities have to meet in order to retain their accreditation.
Salford’s final year students were given extensive training to prepare for the reassessment which included a focus on the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk.
The students involved in the reassessment achieved an overall grade of 93%, making Salford the UK’s first higher education institution to pass the new standards first time around.
Described as ‘highly complementary’ Unicef praised the staff and students for their knowledge, skill and commitment to sustaining the accreditation.
