New Neonatal Unit at The Royal Oldham marks new era for children’s care

New Neonatal Unit at The Royal Oldham marks new era for children’s care

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The new state of the art Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, which opened at The Royal Oldham Hospital on 3 December 2012, is now fully operational and one of three specialist regional Level 3 neonatal centres providing the highest levels of intensive care to the smallest and most vulnerable babies in Greater Manchester including Rochdale borough and Oldham.

The new unit, known as NICU, has been opened three months and is part of the hospital’s new purpose-built £44m Women and Children’s super centre, marking a new era for children’s healthcare services for families across Oldham, Rochdale, Bury, North Manchester and beyond.

Staff in the neonatal unit work closely with those on the new maternity unit to ensure the quick and safe transfer of any extremely pre-term babies or poorly vulnerable babies born with complications. Women whose babies were born prematurely before 27 weeks would previously have been transferred out of the hospital, but can now receive specialist care on the unit.

The Neonatal Unit now offers 37 cots including 9 intensive care, 9 high dependency and 19 special care cots. There is also a dedicated breast-feeding area and counselling room. Upon completion, phase two of the plans will also see a brand new purpose built en-suite accommodation for parents so that they can remain close to their baby whilst they are in intensive care.

The number of medical and nursing staff on the unit has also increased from 45 to 111 whole time equivalent staff and a new dedicated neonatal pharmacist has also been recruited. These changes mean the unit is now able to provide a much more personal and specialised service for women at the time when they and their baby need it most.

Dr Jonathan Moise, the neonatal unit’s lead consultant and Clinical Director at The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHT Trust which runs the hospital, said: “The new facilities are state of the art and we hope that this will provide women and children in the area with the best possible care in a comfortable and modern environment. We can now offer the highest level of care to the sickest and most vulnerable babies throughout the region.”

The neonatal unit is also able to offer enhanced levels of care with long term therapies that were previously unavailable including high frequency oscillatory ventilation, inhaled nitric oxide therapy and therapeutic hypothermia, which involves total body cooling for babies that are born with complications arising from birth asphyxia.

The new neonatal unit is the end result of years of planning to develop and improve maternity and neonatal services across Greater Manchester as part of the ‘Making It Better’ programme.

Mr Sola Amu, Clinical Director and Consultant in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the Trust, said: “This new development is the end point of many decades of carefully thought through improvements to maternity, paediatric and neonatal services across Greater Manchester. With this development, we will see significant improvements in the quality of care and facilities for women and children.”