Early discharge project gains Musgrove Park team recognition at neonatal care awards

Staff on the Somerset Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Musgrove Park Hospital are celebrating after they reached the finals at the national Neonatal Nurses Association Awards. The team was shortlisted for Neonatal Team of the Year 2025, for work to help babies be discharged safely home up to five days earlier than before.

Previously, some babies who would have needed to stay in hospital for up to seven days receiving antibiotics intravenously are now able to go home after as little as 48 hours, with a course of oral antibiotics.

Ana Barbosa, an advanced neonatal nurse practitioner at Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, says: “Since we began this project in February, we identified 19 babies in the first six months who were suitable to go onto oral antibiotics at home. This has freed up 86 bed days over six months – which in real terms means about one neonatal hospital bed every two days.

“We followed international studies that show oral antibiotics are as effective as IV antibiotics. In total we ran 76 virtual consultations in five months and there were no readmissions to our emergency departments or paediatric assessment unit, which is a real marker of success – and great news for families.”

Barbosa explains how the decision is made to include a baby in the project: “When babies are born with risk factors, or the mum has maternal sepsis, our usual process involves using a calculator, called Kaiser, which works out the risk of infection to a baby. We screen the baby if the Kaiser recommends us to, or if the baby is symptomatic, and all babies screened for sepsis are put on a minimum 36 hour course of antibiotics.

“If the CRP is raised, the blood cultures come back positive, or the baby is clinically unwell, we would consider further investigations and administer a minimum of seven day course of antibiotics.

“But for these babies where the CRPs are raised (between 15 and 50), but they are clinically well, they meet the criteria to be able to complete their course of antibiotics at home, instead of having to stay in hospital for seven days. Those babies will have their first 36-48 hours of IV antibiotics in hospital, before completing a further five days of oral antibiotics at home.”

Barbosa adds that everyone on the neonatal unit is thrilled to get such recognition: “The awards shortlist acknowledges our team's incredible efforts to improve the neonatal experience for colleagues, babies and families.

“It all came about after our neonatal team submitted a poster to the Neonatal Nurses Association’s annual conference about this work, and was invited to give a presentation to spread the word of the good work to other areas of the country.

“While preparing our presentation, I noticed the awards, so I nominated our team and to our delight we were named as finalists.”

The Swansea Bay Neonatal Tissue Team was named the neonatal team of the year by the NNA.