Alex Mancini-Smith is a senior neonatal nurse with over 30 years experience and is the National Lead Nurse, leading the National Neonatal Palliative Care Project in the UK, the first innovative post of it’s kind. The initial pilot project commenced in the London Neonatal Operational Delivery Network in 2015 , with further funding in 2021 to replicate across other Neonatal ODN regions over a three year period. This national role and project is funded by Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, it’s charity CW+ and the True Colours Trust https://www.cwplus.org.uk/news/2021/03/22/innovative-neonatal-palliative-care-project-goes-national/
This is a unique role developing the training and education of staff nationally across neonatal, maternity and children’s palliative care teams. She has been instrumental in developing national and international guidelines and frameworks, including robust complex and palliative care pathways.
Alex is committed to supporting staff in their demanding and rewarding roles, and regularly provides senior peer support, reflective practice and training sessions focusing on staff supporting each other.
For the last ten years, Alex has been instrumental in developing the Annual National Neonatal Palliative and End of Life Care conference in collaboration with Child Bereavement UK (CBUK) and is a facilitator for CBUK’s national educational workshops. Alex is an expert member of a central London Clinical Ethics Committee. Alex is frequently invited to speak at national and international conferences including Ireland, Italy, Greece, Argentina, Central America, Singapore, US, Spain.
Building on her educational work over previous years, Alex supports and works alongside teams in embedding palliative care within routine neonatal care by training professionals across the UK and Europe in a variety of settings. Whilst crucially strengthening working relationships with local specialist palliative care services including children’s hospices. Alex is an invited guest lecturer at Kings College, London South Bank and Kingston Universities, teaching Neonatal Palliative and End of Life Care on postgraduate courses. Due to recent events, Alex has further developed virtual training and supportive programmes for staff locally and nationally.
Alex has published widely and is the Lead Editor for the ‘Nurses Textbook in Neonatal Palliative Care’, the first textbook of it’s kind, published January 2020. Current work includes the national review of the British Association of Perinatal Medicine’s palliative care framework for practice, previously published in 2010.
Alex Mancini-Smith MSc, BSc (Hons), RGN
Email: a.mancini@nhs.net
Twitter: @mancini_smith