Internationally recognised Paediatric Feeding Clinic celebrates 10 year anniversary
May 2024 marks the 10-year anniversary of the award-winning and internationally recognised St George Multidisciplinary Paediatric Feeding Clinic.
Created and maintained through a unique collaboration between the Departments of Nutrition and Dietetics, Paediatrics and Speech Pathology, the Feeding Clinic has provided care for hundreds of local children in the past 10 years and saved thousands of clinic appointments for their families.
Feeding difficulties are common in children. Up to 50% of parents of typically developing children report concerns about their child's feeding in the first few years of life. For children with disability this can be 80% or higher.
The St George Multidisciplinary Paediatric Feeding Clinic is the only multidisciplinary feeding clinic for children in the St George and Sutherland areas. It is one of the few clinics in NSW that includes all three disciplines in the one clinic, and it reduces the number of appointments that children with feeding difficulties have to attend by more than half.
The Feeding Clinic team won the 2016 South Eastern Sydney Local Health District Innovation in Integrated Health Care award and they are both national and international pioneers into healthcare research and intervention for children with feeding difficulties.
Dr Chris Elliot, Staff Specialist Paediatrician at St George Hospital said: “This milestone coincides with the publication of a major piece of research, titled "New consensus definition on defining and measuring care for children with paediatric feeding disorder". This paper represents a multi-year collaboration between 10 paediatric feeding clinics in NSW and was co-authored by myself and Naomi Crockett (dietitian) from St George, based on work done with the entire clinic team. The St George Paediatric Feeding Clinic looks forward to continuing their work so that every child in SESLHD who needs their help can thrive".
