Fantoms
- Ben Stenson, Deputy Editor
ORGANISATION OF NEONATAL SERVICES
Data from the Trent Neonatal Survey show that inappropriate neonatal transfers have remained frequent during the 10 years since 1995. Transfers were considered inappropriate if to obtain care an infant required to be transferred out of a tertiary centre or to be transferred from a district general hospital to another hospital beyond their nearest referral centre. They accounted for more than 20% of transfers overall and show no sign of decreasing over time with re-organisation of services. This may be due in part to the steady rise in neonatal intensive care activity during the same time period. Serial census data from the Neonatal Transfer Service for London, Kent, Surrey and Sussex show rising neonatal transfer activity. During the same time period there has been a rise in requests for antenatal transfer but a fall in the number of antenatal transfers carried out, raising the possibility that improved neonatal transport services …
