Sometimes babies are born prematurely or unwell in hospitals that do not have facilities to provide the appropriate level of care. In these cases it may be necessary to transport them from one hospital to a specialist unit in another – such as the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at St Peter’s Hospital (the only one in Surrey). To enable babies to be transported as safely as possible, a dedicated neonatal transport service has been developed.
The Kent, Surrey and Sussex Neonatal Transfer service is a specialist service that transports babies across the region and beyond. Babies can be transported from right across the country and the service has been in place since 2005, with three teams working together to provide round the clock, 24/7 care in a specially equipped neonatal ambulance.
The Surrey Neonatal transfer team is based in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at St Peter’s Hospital and the Trust’s Little Roo Neonatal Fund charity have kindly supplied snack packs for parents. This means snacks and drinks are provided, for when their babies need to be transferred by ambulance, during what can be a very stressful time for them.
Sarah Ord, Lead Nurse for Surrey said: “When we need to move babies urgently the parents don’t have any food for themselves as they are too busy worrying about their babies, so we have introduced snack packs for them which contain a juice drink, water, cereal bars, chocolate, savoury snacks, dried fruit (any sort of long shelf item).”
“On average each month we do approximately 30 transfers and can cover long distances. We allow one parent to travel with us, so the snack packs have come in very handy. In December 2018, we covered 3,418 miles and completed 29 transfers.”
Pictured above is Sarah Ord, Lead Nurse for Surrey
