- Dorset County Hospital FT must transfer babies born before 32 weeks but struggling to find suitable beds in network
- Board papers reveal issue is pulling staff away from its own labour ward
- Charity adds transfers to far away units “disrupts parent involvement in caregiving and decision-making”
Staff at a trust in the South West have had to spend hours “phoning around hospitals” to find suitable cots for premature babies, in the face of “increasing difficulty” in accessing appropriate care locally.
Dorset County Hospital Foundation Trust operates a level one special care baby unit. However, its July board papers explain that the provider has had to ”transfer all women who may need delivery, under 32 completed weeks of pregnancy”.
The board papers revealed: “There is increasing difficulty to identify a neonatal unit with a cot available and then the corresponding bed on labour ward. Most transfers take between [two and four] hours phoning around hospitals, taking the time of a midwife and often a consultant obstetrician.
“Some transfers have been miles outside of the network and a midwife must travel with the woman, hence diminishing staff on [the labour ward].”
The papers added a telephone service designed to help locate suitable beds “is usually unable to help, and at times isn’t available”.
HSJ understands 12 women have needed to be transferred in the past quarter, the furthest away being Plymouth – about 96 miles away from Dorset County Hospital in Dorchester.
Neonatal units are classified into three categories depending on intensity of care offered. Special care baby units – of which Dorset County Hospital is one – provide low dependency care and are not suitable for babies requiring intensive care.
The trust sits in the Thames Valley and Wessex Neonatal Network. The network has nine local neonatal units – which offer a more specialised service to SCBUs but are not as specialised as neonatal intensive care units. It also has three neonatal intensive care units and one other SCBU in addition to Dorset.
In March, HSJ reported regional specialised services teams had started reviewing local neonatal provision. This review could potentially result in some local neonatal units being merged or redesignated as SCBUs, including some in the Thames Valley and Wessex Neonatal Network.
The risk register in the Dorset County Hospital FT’s maternity safety report also highlighted “staffing on [its] SCBU is often critical” and, since it was last updated in March 2022, there had been four Datix incidents linked to staffing, particularly “vacant shifts due to sickness and unable to fill through bank or agency”.
Caroline Lee-Davey, chief executive of pre-mature and sick baby charity Bliss, said: “Neonatal services are often located far from home, but a transfer out-of-network or to a unit further away than the closest appropriate service means that parents may have to travel significant distances every day to be with their baby…
“Ultimately, this can lead to parents not being on the unit with their baby as much as they want to be – this disrupts parent involvement in caregiving and decision-making, which is so important for babies to have the very best outcomes. It is crucial for parents to be by their baby’s side in hospital.”
The trust, as well as the Thames Valley and Wessex Neonatal Network, has been contacted for comment.
According to charity Tommy’s, around 60,000 babies are born prematurely in the UK each year. Of these, approximately 15 per cent were born before 32 weeks.
Meanwhile, earlier this year, the Department of Health and Social Care established a maternity disparities taskforce “to explore reasons for disparities in maternity care and address poor outcomes for women from ethnic minority communities and those living in deprived areas”.
Source
Source date
July 2022
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