Dr. Karen Matvienko-Sikar:

My colleague, Dr. Elaine Toomey, has led on that work, speaking with different healthcare professionals, including practice nurses, public health nurses and general practitioners. The feedback has been that capacity and resources is one of the biggest challenges for healthcare professionals to deliver preventative, proactive rather than reactive messages. The public health nurse network has been cited by the parents as being particularly useful, but there is an issue in respect of the level of trust and the relationships that exist between the parents and the healthcare professionals. That is important, both for the parents and the healthcare professionals, in terms of uptake and engagement with the messages that are being disseminated. The issue of capacity and resources is one of the main challenges cited by healthcare professionals.