New quality standard on specialist neonatal care

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has developed a new quality standard for specialist neonatal care.

The quality standard recommends that specialist neonatal care should include:

• The provision of safe transfers to and from specialist neonatal care units
• Support for parents of babies when planning and providing care for their baby
• Regular communication between parents and clinical staff
• Support for mothers to start and continue breastfeeding, and provision of help to express milk
• Monitoring the health outcomes of babies receiving specialist neonatal care.

This NICE quality standard was introduced following an increase over recent years in the number of babies who require specialist care at birth or who were born prematurely.