National Neonatal Early Respiratory Care Study
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Review of respiratory support strategies in extremely preterm infants in Level 3 neonatal units across England
IRAS ID
219110
Contact name
Rashmi Gandhi
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 11 months, 31 days
Research summary
Around 5000 babies were born ≤ 25 weeks gestation age (GA) and <1500 grams birth weight (very low birth weight (VLBW) and extremely low birth weight (ELBW)) in England, Wales and Scotland from January–December 2015. Despite advances in neonatal intensive care, respiratory morbidities for VLBW and ELBW babies have largely remained unchanged. This is associated with high costs, both to infants and families and in financial terms to the NHS. Recent survey of current practices of neonatal respiratory support strategies showed a considerable variation in the initial invasive respiratory management of this vulnerable population across neonatal units in UK.
We recently reviewed the data of three tertiary neonatal units in London and found significant differences in the initial respiratory management of babies less than 27 weeks GA. One unit was successfully able to extubate 70% of their babies on to non-invasive support by day 7 of life as compared to 28% and 25% in the other two units. This audit highlighted that there are significant differences in the way baby’s respiratory disease is managed across units in London, which could potentially impact on their long term respiratory outcomes. This data was easily collected from the Neonatal data analysis unit (NDAU) platform (Badger.net) at individual hospital level which highlights that this data could be effectively utilised to continuously audit and examine routinely collected and readily available data.
The aim of this research project is to capture data from all level 3 neonatal units across England who primarily care for the babies born <26+0 weeks GA, to bench mark and compare their initial respiratory outcome and use this for quality improvement and improve the outcomes for these babies.REC name
London - Riverside Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/LO/0060
Date of REC Opinion
22 Dec 2017
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion