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Specialist neonatal care quality standard

In-utero and postnatal transfers for neonatal special, high-dependency, intensive and surgical care follow perinatal network guidelines and care pathways that are integrated with other maternity and newborn network guidelines and pathways. Networks, commissioners and providers of specialist neonatal care undertake an annual needs assessment and ensure each network has adequate capacity. Specialist neonatal services have a sufficient, skilled and competent multidisciplinary workforce. Neonatal transfer services provide babies with safe and efficient transfers to and from specialist neonatal care. Parents of babies receiving specialist neonatal care are encouraged and supported to be involved in planning and providing care for their baby, and regular communication with clinical staff occurs throughout the care pathway. Mothers of babies receiving specialist neonatal care are supported to start and continue breastfeeding, including being supported to express milk. Babies receiving specialist neonatal care have their health and social care plans coordinated to help ensure a safe and effective transition from hospital to community care. Providers of specialist neonatal services maintain accurate and complete data, and actively participate in national clinical audits and applicable research programmes. Babies receiving specialist neonatal care have their health outcomes monitored.

Specialist neonatal care Care pathways and guidelines Annual needs assessments Skilled and multidisciplinary staff Neonatal transfer services Encouraging parental involvement in care Breastfeeding Coordinated transition to community care Data, audit and research Health outcomes

• Full specialist neonatal care quality standard (PDF format)

This NICE quality standard defines clinical best practice within this topic area. It provides specific, concise quality statements, measures and audience descriptors to provide parents and the public, health and social care professionals, commissioners and service providers with definitions of high-quality care.

Rationale for developing this quality standard

As a result of increasing rates of fertility and availability of assisted conception, more and more babies in England require specialist neonatal care each year. In 2007-08, one in ten babies born alive received specialist neonatal care of some sort and this number is constantly increasing. Babies born pre-term especially require highly specialised care in units where multidisciplinary teams can ensure that they receive the best possible technologically advanced care and that the needs of their families are also met. This quality standard provides clinicians, managers and parents with a description of what high-quality specialist neonatal care should look like.

Scope of the quality standard

The quality standard addresses care provided for babies in need of specialist neonatal services including transfer services. Specialist neonatal services are those delivering special, high dependency, intensive or surgical care to babies.

Specialist neonatal care quality statements

The quality standard for specialist neonatal care requires that physical, psychological and social needs of babies and their families are at the heart of all care given. Specialist neonatal care areas of care map: click here to see the quality statements mapped against the areas of specialist neonatal care

Key development sources

Primary evidence source

Please note: This NICE quality standard is based on consensus documentation as there were no relevant NICE guidance or NHS Evidence accredited sources available. Department of Health (DH) (2009) Toolkit for high quality neonatal services British Association of Perinatal Medicine (BAPM) (2010) Standards for hospitals providing neonatal intensive and high dependency care Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) (2008) Standards for maternity care: report of a working party.

Development team

Director	Fergus Macbeth
Associate director	Nicola Bent
Consultant clinical adviser	Tim Stokes
Lead analyst	Craig Grime
Topic Expert Group: Specialist neonatal care

Field testing and consultation feedback

Consultation and field testing of the specialist neonatal care quality standard took place from 17 May to 14 June 2010. In total, 98 stakeholders were contacted during consultation and the NICE field team visited eleven organisations to discuss the draft standard in detail. All eligible comments were reviewed by the Topic Expert Group and Quality Standards Programme Board and the standard was updated accordingly. Specialist neonatal care field testing and consultation report

Implementation support materials

• Patient information
• Cost impact and commissioning assessment

Publication partners

Many organisations share NICE's commitment to improve quality by making it clear what quality care is for patients and the public, health and social care professionals, commissioners and service providers. So that these standards reach the widest possible audience, some of the organisations who have been involved in the development process, and who endorse the specialist neonatal care quality standard, have become partners in its publication.

These organisations are:

BLISS
British Association of Perinatal Medicine (BAPM)
Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health
Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists
Royal College of Midwives

Issued: October 2010

This page was last updated: 21 September 2011