ANSC March 2022 Update: RPA Women and Babies/Canterbury Hospital

New GP Shared Care Midwife

Melanie Tulloch has commenced as GP Shared Care Midwife for RPA Women and Babies and Canterbury Hospital. Melanie has worked across Sydney Local Health District, including as a Clinical Midwifery Educator at Canterbury Hospital and most recently in the Concord Midwifery Group Practice. 

Melanie’s work hours are Monday to Friday 8am-4:30pm. Melanie is contactable via phone or text on 0425 230 662, or email Melanie.Tulloch@health.nsw.gov.au

For urgent clinical concerns please contact the on-call O&G Registrar through switch at the relevant hospital: RPA 9515 6111, Canterbury 9787 0000  

Engage Outpatients: SLHD e-referral, triage and appointment scheduling in NSW Hospitals

Sydney Local Health District is pleased to be a demonstrator site for the eHealth NSW Engage Outpatients pilot. Engage Outpatients will change the management of referrals, triage and appointment scheduling in NSW Health hospitals through the capture of e-Referrals, fax digitisation and transcription and scanning of paper-based referrals into an integrated Referral Management platform that allows for referral acknowledgement, online triage and outcome notification to both referrer and the patient/carer.

Launching at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Women’s and Babies service in late April 2022, General Practitioners will be able to use HealthLink SmartForms from their practice software or the HealthLink portal to launch e-Referrals to the following services:

• RPAH Maternity
• RPAH Fertility
• RPAH Gynaecology

For General Practitioners without Best Practice, Genie or Medical Director practice systems, referrals can be lodged using the HealthLink portal or submitted by fax using a new fax coversheet which enables digitisation of your faxed referral.

Please review the information sheet

Care of COVID-positive pregnant women enrolled in ANSC

Refer to the published recommendations for the care of COVID-positive pregnant women enrolled in ANSC at RPA Women and Babies and Canterbury Hospital (updated February 2022). Please note these guidelines are being update regularly, ensure you are referring to latest guidelines by accessing via HealthPathways Sydney or the CESPHN Maternal Health website.

Testing for diabetes in pregnancy

The Sydney Health Pathways Hyperglycaemia in Pregnancy pathway contains up to date guidance on when to screen for diabetes in pregnancy. Please take the opportunity to refresh your knowledge, as recommendations for timing of antenatal testing have changed in recent years. Note that the pregnancy Glucose Tolerance Test (GTT) should not be performed on women less than 16 weeks gestation.

The SLHD Diagnostic Process for Hyperglycaemia in Pregnancy and patient instructions for GTT testing are available on the CESPHN website.

Login details for Sydney Health Pathways:

Username: connected

Password: healthcare

Upcoming RPA/Canterbury ANSC GP Orientation and Refresher Session

The RPA Women and Babies/Canterbury Hospital ANSC Orientation Session will provide an overview of the ANSC program, GP education requirements, and information on where to access clinical information and support including details on SLHD midwifery services and referral pathways. This session will also include details about the new SLHD Maternity, Gynaecology and Fertility e-referral system. 

The webinar is compulsory for all new ANSC GP applicants and is open to existing RPA/Canterbury ANSC GPs as refresher training session.  

GPs will accrue 3 ANSC CPD points for attending this session.

Event date: 27 April 2022, 7-8:30pm via webinar.

Register via this link.

SLHD Models of Care

The SLHD Models of Care information sheet has been updated. Please refer to the latest version when discussing models of care with your patients.

Canterbury Hospital Maternity Hypertension clinic

Canterbury Hospital now has a dedicated Maternity Hypertension Clinic, led by Dr Lucy Wynter.

The clinic sees antenatal and postnatal women with a range of hypertensive disorders, including essential hypertension. The clinic is in the process of expanding and will be accepting GP referrals in the near future.

Children thrive when parents are supported

 Sydney Local Health District’s Parent Education team offers a variety of services to families who live in our community.

Facilitators are experienced physiotherapists, midwives, lactation consultants and Child and Family Health Nurses. Information sessions include early pregnancy physical changes, childbirth, parenting, and breastfeeding. 

One-on-one education can be organised for families who require a tailored approach.

We also offer specialised sessions relating to caesarean births, multiple births and active births and a session designed specifically for grandparents.

In addition, we partner with an advocacy and support group, Rainbow Families, to provide LGBTIQA+ specific birth and parenting education.

This year we will also be working with CPR Kids to provide CPR and first aid training for new parents.

Our classes are offered during the day, in the evening and on the weekends.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic all Parent Education sessions have been offered via Zoom. With this flexible option, families are able to continue to attend, even if in self-isolation.

For bookings, please see: https://www.slhd.nsw.gov.au/RPA/WomenAndBabies/infoPregnant.html

For more information please see: https://www.slhd.nsw.gov.au/canterbury/maternity.html

The Canterbury Antenatal and Postnatal Service, or CAPS, has turned one.

 CAPS provides families with care by the same midwife during pregnancy and two weeks post birth, either at home, hospital or in community clinics.

Since its inception, the CAPS team at Canterbury Hospital has grown from two midwives to six with Alison Byrne, Carla La Motta, Kate O’Loughlin, Jenny Nguyen, Mel de Ferranti and Sarah Anderson providing support to 639 Canterbury families.

“We’ve provided more than 6500 occasions of service. We’re passionate about the continuity of antenatal care and delivering two weeks of postnatal support to parents,” says Mel de Ferranti.

“We’ve had families having their second baby return to CAPS for care, because of the positive experience they’ve had,” Mel says.

The team has also expanded from one Child and Family Health Clinic to three with midwives now running clinics at Belmore, Earlwood and Punchbowl.

The model of care has also been shared with four other hospitals who are starting or have started their own version of CAPS.

For more information, please email SLHD-CAPS@health.nsw.gov.au