Over the last year we have been working on benchmarking and reviewing the psychologically informed environment in neonatal units. This was helpful in giving us an initial sense of where units were, but much more work is needed to hear from staff about providing psychologically informed care and then to think about how we develop this.

In short, psychologically informed care is when we think about the needs of the people in the environment (babies, staff and families) and how we best respond to these needs with compassion. It is more than just ‘being nice’ and looks at the physical environment, our policies and practices and our understanding of the way people function (the TIC training is useful for this!). If you want to know more about psychologically informed care you can do our e-learning modules: www.e-lfh.org.uk. This year we will be visiting units to talk with senior staff (matrons, clinical leads and others) about their unit environment and culture and together consider what support they would like from psychology to develop this.