Nursing the surgical neonate part 1: developing a neonatal surgical outreach service

In 2007 it was reported by 23 of the 26 UK centres providing paediatric surgery for neonates that all but one had refused admissions due to lack of capacity. In the last decade, Birmingham Children’s Hospital has addressed this problem by developing a neonatal surgical outreach service. This article describes the concept behind the outreach service and how it was developed.