Every six minutes a baby is born in the UK who needs specialist hospital care, yet neonatal services are overstretched and understaffed, according to a report published by the charity Bliss.
The findings of the report were based on a Freedom of Information request sent to every neonatal unit in the UK, which asked about their activity between 1 April 2007 and 1 September 2007, and a survey of 500 parents. The research showed that staff shortages remain a huge problem. Between 2006 and 2007, 160 more nurses were recruited to special care baby units. While this shows some progress, there was still a shortage of 1,700 neonatal nurses to provide the minimum care needed to the babies admitted in 2007.
One-to-one nursing care is the minimum standard for anyone admitted to intensive care in the UK. Currently this standard is met for children and adults but not for babies. Only one in five neonatal units reported that they met the nurse staffing standard set out by the British Association of Perinatal Medicine in 2001. It remains common for a nurse to have to care for two babies in intensive care at one time. Not only is care for babies not being provided at appropriate levels, but nurses are not able to spend enough time with parents giving them reassurance and vital information. In addition, one level three unit (intensive care) and 25 level two units (high dependency) reported having no dedicated neonatal consultant last year.
For units to effectively deal with peaks and troughs in admissions, it is recommended that they do not exceed an average occupancy of 70%. The report showed that, in 2007, only one in five of the most specialised units met this standard and a third of all units reached 100% capacity or more, at some point. In addition, one in five units closed for seven weeks out of a year, while seven units closed to new admissions for over seven months over the same period.
The report also highlighted that long distance transfers of babies between hospitals due to lack of capacity are common. Over half of units had to close to new admissions at some point. Over the five-month period, almost 500 babies were transferred due to a lack of staffed cots. This is on average three babies a day. While parents’ responses were very positive about the care their baby had received on the unit, the financial and emotional impact caused by these transfers was significant.
