SWSPHN Antenatal Shared Care Program

Accessibility to non-invasive prenatal testing is changing in South West Sydney.

Expert presenters will engage and inform GPs and obstetricians about the upcoming changes to prenatal testing within South West Sydney Local Health District at this free event. Click the image to register.

NIPT – how it works and potential pitfalls in screening. Professor Jon Hyett

NIPT Technologies – Value of SNPs. Mark Hajjar

Integrating NIPT into first trimester pregnancy assessment. A/Professor Indika Alahakoon

Plans for first trimester pregnancy assessment in SWSLHD. Prof Jon Hyett

The value of carrier screening: US experience. Mark Hajjar

Jon Hyett is a Professor of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Western Sydney University, and Clinical Academic Specialist, Obstetrics and Materno-Fetal Medicine, Liverpool Hospital and South Western Sydney Local Health District

Indika Alahakoon is a Clinical Assoc. Professor in MFM - Fetal Medicine University of Sydney, Senior Staff Specialist - Westmead Hospital, Consultant Obstetrician and Sonologist - Centre for Women’s Ultrasound Westmead and Bella Vista

Mark Hajjar is a Medical Science Liaison with Natera, USA.

Click on the image to register for this event.

The event is sponsored by Natera, the NIPT service under agreement with NSW Health and SWSLHD. CPD should be self recorded for this event.

Need some ANSC CPD?

Please see the listed events coming up over the next 3 months, provided by SWSPHN. Full pamphlet here.

Registrations are open for the following:

- June 20th: Overcoming barriers to healthcare for LGBTIQA+ people, including those from refugee backgrounds

- July 11th: Safer Baby Bundle Launch- Face to face with limited numbers

- August 2nd: Boobs and babies: supporting breastfeeding with slow or poor weight gain- registration link coming

- September 19th: ANSC Refresher Session- registration link coming.

Other ANSC relevant RACGP events:

- August 22: Nausea and vomiting in pregnancy and hyperemesis gravidarum

There are also many on-demand webinars available through RACGP relating to antenatal care.

The Antenatal Shared Care Guidelines provide direction and clinical guidance to recognised ANSC GP providers. The Guidelines have been reviewed and updated to be in line with changes to antenatal care provision as directed by NSW Health and the Pregnancy Care Guidelines (2021).

Updates include strategies aimed to identify risk of stillbirth and fetal growth restriction through the Safer Baby Bundle.

The associated ANSC Protocol, has also been updated to align with the ANSC Guidelines.

Both the Guidelines and Protocol can be found within the ANSC Folder.

Please discard previous versions of the Guidelines and Protocol.

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is 30 times more common than Toxoplasmosis and Listeria.

In Australia, more than 400 babies every year are born with a life-long disability caused by CMV, including deafness, epilepsy, intellectual impairment, cerebral palsy and, in rare, cases death. This makes CMV the most common infectious cause of disabilities in newborn babies.(Cerebral Palsy Alliance)

An online CPD module is available through Praxhub, providing 1.5CPD self-record points, to provide further information to GPs about CMV. An account with Praxhub is required to access the activity, accessible here.

Early engagement for pregnant women to antenatal care is critical. Pregnant women need to be connected with their hospital antenatal clinic by 13 weeks gestation, which means that the woman requires a referral earlier than 12 weeks gestation.

Women can connect themselves to the antenatal clinic via the self referral service: Booking in My Pregnancy (BiMP). She still requires a GP referral prior to attending her appointment.

General Practitioners can also refer women directly to the antenatal clinic via BiMP.

Simple instructions for clinician use of BiMP can be found here.

Poster resources in English, Arabic, Vietnamese, and combined language are available in the Resource Folder.

South West Sydney Local Health District (SWSLHD) Maternity Services is undertaking one of the largest scale redesign projects ever attempted within the history of the Local Health District. The Antenatal Redesign Project is seeking to change a 100 year old system of antenatal care.

The overall purpose of the project is to provide safe, equitable care that is accessible to all women and broaden the implementation of first trimester screening. Three working parties have been established and each include representatives from the General Practitioners of South West Sydney. The first working party is focused on consumer information and engagement, with a priority on women receiving timely and culturally specific information. The second working party has an emphasis on the referral processes, with the last working party focusing on the coordination of first trimester screening for all women in SWSLHD.

The consumer information and engagement working party wants to hear directly from all general practitioners. Focus group sessions have been set aside to hear from you, for you to provide your thoughts on antenatal care, and how to improve systems and processes between GP’s and SWSLHD hospitals.

Should you have any questions about the focus groups or would like to be involved and cannot attend a session, please contact Nicole Grieg- Antenatal Redesign Project Manager- via Nicole.grieg@health.nsw.gov.au or 0419 440 943.

Booking in My Pregnancy (BiMP) is an online questionaire that women complete to register their pregnancy with their local maternity service within South West Sydney Local Health District. Women complete the questionaire via their computer or personal device, and at completion a PDF summary is generated and automatically sent to their local hospital.

The woman can access the questionaire via scanning the QR code or through the link.

The online questionaire facilitates the identification of risk factors that the woman may have which can impact their pregnancy.

The questionaire can be completed in English, Arabic or Vietnamese. An English PDF version is sent to the hospital automatically. From there the hospital will contact the woman to book her first appointment.

The address that the woman enters into the questionaire is geo-locked to that location, and the PDF summary is sent to the hospital local to that nominated address.

There is an option for the GP to complete either the questionaire on behalf of the woman or a referral via the BiMP landing page.

All information collected via the questionaire is kept securely on the South West Sydney Local Health District computer servers.

Recommendations have changed for syphillis screening during pregnancy following an increase in case numbers across NSW. Cases have been reported even amongst population groups that were not previously considered to be high risk. A safety notice has been distributed to NSW Health, advising clinicians to screen antenatal women twice during pregnancy. The recommeded times for screening during pregnancy are at initial pregnancy screening and repeated again at 26-28 weeks gestation. The safety notice can viewed in full via the Clinical Excellence Commission.

John Hunter Hospital is offering a CPD opportunity on common gynaecology and gynae-oncology topics on November 4th, 2022.

The study day is available to attend both face to face or virtually.

Topics included are:

• hyperemesis
• ovarian cysts
• ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome
• termination of pregnancy
• pelvic pain
• urogynaecology
• gynae-oncology topics

Registrations close 28th October. To register contact: Kathryn.Bourke@health.nsw.gov.au or Anne.Mellon@health.nsw.gov.au.

Australian College of Midwives are offering a free Prenatal Screening and Down syndrome eLearning course

At the end of this eLearning course, you will be able to:
1. Explain what Down syndrome is;
2. Describe what informed consent is, and how this relates to prenatal screening;
3. Outline the screening and diagnosis options, and discuss the difference between screening and diagnosis;
4. Explore how best to communicate with women about prenatal screening, including how and who to refer families to, to support informed decision making; and
5. Consider how midwives can best support and care for women and their families surrounding prenatal screening, options and decision-making in a way which respects diversity as well as a woman’s right to make an informed choice.

This course is free to access for all and equivalent to 1 CPD point

Follow this link

FREE ELEARNING COURSE