Alder Hey and Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust are working in partnership to change and improve how neonatal services are delivered to families across the North West.
Together we have formed the Liverpool Neonatal Partnership, focused on creating a single service and providing a safer service for young babies.
By working together within a partnership, we will be able to provide the very best neonatology and surgical expertise, ensuring the highest standards of care and the very best clinical outcomes. The Liverpool Neonatal Partnership is being led by a Senior Leadership Team and will be supported by specialist staff from both trusts, including consultant neonatologists, consultant neonatal surgeons, advanced nurse practitioners and specialist neonatal nurses.
Improvements have already been made to the way neonatal care is being delivered, including colleagues from both hospitals working more closely together across both sites. The Neonatal Unit at Liverpool Women’s Hospital has also been recently redeveloped and a newly built Neonatal Intensive and High Dependency Care Unit opened in 2020. The unit has been re-modelled to provide new special care bed bays and other supporting space. The new Neonatal Unit will also provide a parents sitting room and accommodation, seminar and clinical skills rooms, a dedicated end-of-life suite, cot-wash, laundry, storage and office space.
Plans are also underway at Alder Hey to create a new Neonatal Intensive Care Unit providing 22 cots for pre-term surgical and cardiac babies. The state-of-the art facility would care for families across the North West, Isle of Man and North Wales. The Unit would be staffed by nurses with neonatal specialty training, advanced neonatal nurse practitioners, consultant neonatologists, consultant paediatric surgeons and therapists.
A dedicated surgical NICU will provide the safest environment possible for babies and their families at Alder Hey and will further compliment the Liverpool Neonatal Partnership between the two hospital sites. We will also be able to reduce the number of unnecessary and sometimes risky transfers of neonates between the two hospitals, significantly improving the experience of patients and families. The Unit is expected to be open by 2022.