A new obstetric ultrasound toolkit from the SoR aims to provide guidance for antenatal services, ultrasound managers and sonographers to promote improvements to obstetric ultrasound services and sonographer career development.
Click here to download the guidance, called: Guidance and recommendations for running an effective, high-quality obstetric ultrasound service and supporting obstetric sonographer career development.
It provides good practice suggestions and ideas for teams to consider implementing to improve recruitment, retention, career progression and role satisfaction among sonographers, to enhance team working within antenatal services and to provide high-quality parent-centred care.
Meeting parental needs
Care of pregnant women, pregnant people and their chosen birth companions is at the heart of what sonographers do, says the guidance, and the only way to achieve good parent care is to work as an integral part of the antenatal team. The document has been co-created and developed with input from a range of stakeholders, including the parent voice, to ensure that parental needs were considered.
The SoR hopes the guidance will help to address some of the issues facing sonographers in obstetrics ultrasound, including staff shortages, working conditions, morale and a lack of career development opportunities.
Gill Harrison, the SoR's professional officer for ultrasound and one of the authors of the guidance, said: "A fundamental ambition of the document is to support improvements in antenatal ultrasound services, with a focus on different aspects of service provision and staff wellbeing. The ultimate aim is to support sonographers to make changes that impact on multi-professional teams, communication, job satisfaction, and ultimately service delivery and the care provided for expectant parents".