App helps parents decide if their baby needs to see a doctor

Baby charity The Lullaby Trust has developed Baby Check, a free app that helps parents test their baby for different signs of illness and determine how unwell they are.

Featuring 19 simple symptom checks, the app calculates a final score that indicates the severity of the infant's illness and advises parents whether they need to see a doctor.

Developed in partnership with Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, the app was piloted in 2015 with great success and is now recommended by a number of NHS trusts. Baby Check has been redeveloped to make it even easier for parents to use and is now CE marked as a Class 1 medical device.

Baby Check was first developed as a result of a research project led by child health experts who analysed the signs and symptoms of illness in over 1,000 babies under six months of age. The 19 signs and symptoms now used in the app were found to give the most accurate assessment.

Originally distributed to parents by The Lullaby Trust in booklet form, the idea to develop this resource into a user-friendly app came from health visiting team leader Carroll Johnson-Chapman who is based in Birmingham. Carroll's idea won the backing of The Lullaby Trust and her employer Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Trust, which provided research and development support to develop Baby Check into an app available to download from Google Play and the App Store.