Babies In Buscot Support (BIBS) is a registered charity whose work is two-fold:

1. to support the work of Buscot Ward - the Special Care Baby Unit at the Royal Berkshire Hospital - by raising much-needed funds for new technology and equipment
   
   
2. to support to the parents of those babies requiring special care at Buscot through a difficult and even harrowing time

Each year, over 300 of the babies born at the Royal Berkshire Hospital require the special care offered by Buscot Ward. The reasons for this are many and varied - a premature birth or ill health in the baby or mother during pregnancy, for example.

The emotions that parents go through when they realise their newborn baby is ill can be devastating, especially if that baby is critically ill and is going to require many months of special care.

All our volunteers are parents who themselves have had babies on Buscot ward and have gone through similar feelings. Most of those parents feel that the time spent on Buscot ward has changed them in some small way and would like others to benefit from the experience.

One of the ways in which BIBS offers support at those times is by maintaining a rota of volunteers to be available in order to give a listening and understanding ear to parents and close family. We back this up with perhaps more tangible support in the form of book loans, baby clothes for premature babies and information on neonatal care.

As a group representing the interests of parents, we also maintain contact with medical and nursing staff in order to support the vital work they do, sometimes reinforcing hospital policy to the parents to help them gain a better understanding of why things work the way they do.

BIBS collects and raises funds for the Special Care Baby Unit at Buscot not only to provide medical equipment and to support other investments, but also for other projects on the ward which would likely not get capital funding. Such projects include refurbishing the "quiet room"m the "family room" and the "flats", all of which help to make a parents' stay more comfortable.

All investments are made following dialogue with the staff on Buscot ward, regarding the priorities according to which new equipment should be sourced.