Professionals

We are here to help healthcare professionals improve the detection and treatment of congenital heart defects, so we’re committed to supporting you.

We offer:

• Expert training to sonographers to identify CHD
• Free support materials
• Placement of pulse oximetry machines in your hospital (conditions apply)
• Conferences, talks and learning opportunities for health professionals

Sonographer training

We’ve been providing expert training to healthcare professionals since 2002, with our trainers visiting more than two thirds of maternity hospitals in the UK.

During that time, national prenatal detection rates of CHD have doubled from 23% to 47%, and we helped push rates above 50% when we provided training throughout Wales.

Click here to find out more about our training

Pulse oximetry testing

In 2018 we rolled out a national campaign to provide and place pulse oximetry machines in maternity wards across the UK, following a successful pilot in Yorkshire. We have already placed over 86 machines in hospitals throughout the UK.

Research has shown that this simple, additional newborn test could help identify cases of heart problems that would otherwise go undetected. Dr Elspeth Brown, Lead Clinician, Yorkshire and Humber Congenital Heart Disease Network, says: “Despite advances in fetal diagnosis of congenital heart disease there are still a significant number of babies with severe problems which are not detected before delivery. Checking oxygen saturations in newborns not only offers another opportunity to identify these babies before they become seriously unwell but has also been shown to detect other problems such as infections which can therefore be treated more successfully. We really welcome this initiative from Tiny Tickers which will undoubtedly save lives.”

At present, pulse oximetry testing is not a mandatory newborn test within NHS hospitals, and many maternity units perceive cost as a barrier to introducing the test. For these reasons, Tiny Tickers is placing pulse oximetry testing kits in maternity units across the UK. Our ambition is that we will have offered machines to every NHS Trust in the UK by 2021.

If your hospital would like to apply for a pulse oximetry machine(s), please fill in the application form here.

Order Tiny Tickers materials

If you would like to order some Think 20 or Think HEART information cards and posters for your unit, surgery or place of work, please email us with details and your full address to orders@tinytickers.org..

Read our Professional Blog

Find out what our Head of Training and guest bloggers think about advances in detection of heart defects in babies. Read more here.