29 June 2020
BFHI Australia appreciate that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant effect on the ability of facilities to continue providing their routine standards of care. This document is intended to support facility BFHI coordinators and senior staff to plan any work related to Baby Friendly accreditation during the Covid-19 outbreak.
Once the current situation eases, we are expecting that most facilities will need some time to adjust before undergoing BFHI assessments. Interstate travel restrictions are easing in the majority of states however, assessors are not permitted to travel on behalf of BFHI Australia at present. We feel that this is in the best interest of not only our dedicated assessors but also accrediting facilities, their staff, patients and families.
For these reasons, BFHI Australia has decided to implement with immediate effect a 4-year accreditation cycle for all facilities currently accredited, regardless as to where they are within the accreditation cycle.
Assessments which were scheduled to take place during recent months have already been postponed and contacted. We will continue to work with these facilities to determine when your assessment should be rescheduled for.
BFHI Australia are aiming to maintain re-assessments which can potentially be done remotely where appropriate and which can be accommodated by facilities. These potential facilities will be contacted separately.
We appreciate that it could be difficult to collate bi-annual data at this time. Routine standards of care practices may have altered during the peak of the pandemic and the data collection could reflect this negatively. Any facilities negatively impacted are encouraged to include details of amended practices due to COVID-19 in Tab 1 of their data audit. The next data collection is due to be requested in July 2020, if you wish to delay submitting this data set, please contact the BFHI Australia office.
The above decisions will be reviewed in September 2020 and any further statements will be developed and circulated if needed.
Contact us
Email: bfhi@midwives.org.au
Phone: 1300 360 480