Surrey neonatal unit recognised as positive outlier in national audit

The National Neonatal Audit Programme (NNAP), led by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, assesses whether babies admitted to neonatal units across England, Scotland and Wales receive consistent, high quality care. The programme highlights areas of excellence and identifies opportunities for improvement across 10 performance indicators.

In the latest audit publication, the neonatal intensive care unit at Ashford and St Peter’s Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was identified as a positive outlier, achieving three or more standard deviations above expected performance, in the following areas:

• Deferred cord clamping
• Two-year follow-up assessments for preterm babies born under 30 weeks’ gestation
• Non-invasive ventilation
• On-time screening for retinopathy of prematurity (ROP)

Dr Vennila Ponnusamy, Consultant Neonatologist and Neonatal Specialty Lead, says: “We are very pleased to have received an outstanding status on four of the NNAP measures, building on the two outstanding statuses last year.

“This shows the excellent standards we aspire to achieve in all areas, and the great quality of care we provide to our babies and families. Thanks to our Little Roo Neonatal Fund for supporting our unit with the state-of-the-art ventilators, which can provide non-invasive ventilation to smaller babies, allowing us to continue the ethos of less invasive ventilation, which has been shown to have long-term health benefits to all babies.

“We are very proud to be working closely with our maternity colleagues in implementing the perinatal optimisation bundle, which helps us to deliver best perinatal care to our babies and families.”

Sid Hurry, Charity Manager for the Little Roo Neonatal Fund, adds: “We are delighted to have contributed to this incredible achievement through funding the equipment needed to deliver both deferred cord clamping and non-invasive ventilation to babies on the NICU, enabling the best possible outcomes for sick and premature babies.”

The NNAP recognition builds on the trust’s ongoing commitment to excellence in neonatal care, family-integrated support, and continuous quality improvement.

The unit cares for some of the smallest and sickest babies in Surrey, Sussex and Kent who are born as early as 22 weeks. The unit has four nurseries, with eight intensive care cots, eight high dependency cots, 12 special care cots and eight transitional cots