The NHS will be told today to improve its care of tens of thousands of babies born every year who need specialist medical help amid concern that too many have received substandard treatment.
Hospitals should employ more neonatal nurses in order to ensure that every newborn receives constant one-to-one attention, and the situation in which about 1,000 babies annually, many critically ill after being born prematurely or full-term but with life-threatening conditions, are often sent many miles from their home area because of a shortage of cots should come to an end.
The recommended standards come after a year-long, government-commissioned inquiry into neonatal care in England by a taskforce of medical experts headed by Professor Sir Bruce Keogh, the NHS's medical director. The inquiry was prompted by a series of critical reports by, among others, the National Audit Office, which highlighted the chronic shortage of specialist nurses trained to deal with newborns and other problems.
Improvements are intended to benefit the 68,000 babies a year in England who require some form of extra care when they are born, including the 19,500 who end up in intensive care.
Nine per cent more babies have received neonatal care in the last three years because of factors including the trend of more women over 40 and under 20 giving birth, increased access to fertility treatments and a 30% rise in the number of women admitted to hospital when their baby has reached up to 25 weeks gestation.
Under a set of eight standards for neonatal care unveiled today all babies in intensive care would be guaranteed to be cared for by a dedicated nurse because of their acute medical needs. The taskforce said each such baby should have one-to-one care. But one nurse would be able to look after two babies requiring high dependency care and four babies getting special care.
The taskforce found that neonatal units were short of about 2,700 nurses. It found many nurses avoided neonatal care because of the emotional demands of the job, which involved counselling parents with seriously ill babies.
In future, care should be more family-centred with, for example, parents able to speak to a senior doctor in detail about their child's prospects within 24 hours of admission to a neonatal unit.
Medical organisations welcomed the recommendations. But they voiced concern that no new money was made available to fund improvements and it did not a timetable for improvements being made. "We urge the government to ensure that the resources and funding needed to implement the recommendations and standards are made available", said Professor Terence Stephenson, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. "Babies should not be denied access to one-to-one nursing care and other support which is already available to children and adults in intensive care".
Keogh said the improvements would not "happen immediately but will evolve over the next few years, as staff will need to be recruited and trained".
Andy Cole, chief executive of the baby charity Bliss, said : "We are concerned that with the lack of upfront investment this could be another wasted opportunity to deliver the care that vulnerable babies desperately need."
