My name is Louise, and I am a Newborn hearing screener based at Singleton hospital Swansea.
Louise New Born hearing screener
As a screener, I screen newborn babies hearing to establish if they have hearing loss at birth. This ensures that parents get the help and support they need straight from the start to minimise any delays in speech and language development for a baby if hearing loss is detected. We carry out screening on post-natal wards, screening babies that are sometimes only a few hours old. We also carry out screening in Special Care Baby units and in the community for babies that are missed in the hospital or need re-screening.
As screeners, we work alongside other healthcare professionals, such as midwives, nursery nurses and paediatricians. In the community, we liaise with community Midwives, Health visitors and GPs.
Our roles are a mix of administration and face-to-face clinical contact. We start our day in our office checking and testing our equipment for use during Screening, we check the databases for the babies that have been born in Singleton, and we then go on the wards to gather the information about the babies that are still there and those that have been discharged before being screened so we can make clinic appointments for those missed making sure every baby has the opportunity to be screened. We then go to the ward to explain the screening process to parents and take consent if they are happy to have the Screening. The screening test is a soft-tipped earpiece into babies’ ears, they then hear gentle clicking sounds and our equipment lets us know automatically how the baby responds. After completing the Screening, we return to our office and accurately record the clinical test data relevant to the screening process. The afternoons are spent running community clinics, arranging and appointing babies to clinics and or carrying out various other administrative tasks.
The screening division asks applicants to have a good standard of education in numeracy and literacy and GCSEs or equivalent. Due to the environment and nature of the job experience working with families, babies and other health professionals in a clinical environment is desirable as communication and relationship skills are vital in this role.
Applicants must show commitment to undertake in-house training which includes the HCSW Induction Programme and work towards a Level 3 diploma in New-born Hearing Screening. Training is ongoing with the role and there is mandatory training and learning that needs to be achieved to be a competent Screener and remain current with all policies and guidelines.
Encouragement and opportunities are given by management to progress within the field of New-born Screening. Newborn Hearing Screeners are appointed at band 2 but automatically progress to band 3 posts when we complete the level 3 qualifications. There are opportunities to apply for band 4 Senior Screener roles within the service, which combine screening delivery with training and technical duties.
I enjoy my role as a Newborn Hearing Screener as no two days are ever the same. You get to meet a wide array of people with the bonus of identifying babies that may have hearing loss and you are at the pivotal to the start of their journey to living and adapting to this.