Health minister Ann Keen visited the University College Hospital Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Wing yesterday to mark the launch of new guidance to help the NHS improve the care provided for premature and sick babies.

The minister was full of praise for the ‘world class’ facilities that the Trust’s neonatal unit provides for babies from London. Because of the unit’s close links with the nearby Great Ormond Street Hospital, it also offers specialist treatment for babies from the rest of the UK and abroad.

She was greeted by Peter Dixon, Trust chairman, Tara Donnelly, managing director specialist hospitals board, Sheila Adam, UCLH head of nursing, and Guy Young, interim head of nursing for specialist hospitals. She was taken around the unit by Sophia Rokkas, NNU nurse manager, Janet Rennie, consultant neonatologist and Kara Gelb, Maternity & NNU general manager.

Babies who are born prematurely, or have a low birth weight, require very specialised care in their first hours and days. A Neonatal Taskforce was established by the government to identify ways of further improving services to offer the best neonatal care possible. Experts from special care baby charity Bliss and specialist NHS staff have helped to develop the Neonatal Toolkit to share its findings and guidance with the NHS. UCLH's Dr Jane Hawdon, consultant neonatologist and Professor Neil Marlow, academic lead for the neonatal service, were both closely involved in this work.

The NHS has made great progress in caring for babies with the lowest infant mortality rates and NHS neonatal services now care for over 60,000 babies a year. The UCLH service treated more than 1,500 babies between January and August this year.

While England remains one of the safest places in the world to give birth, the Taskforce has recommended that neonatal care become more family-centred to ensure the psychological as well as physical needs of babies and families are considered. The Toolkit they have created provides practical advice on how to improve on the areas that really matter to parents including:

• making sure the right staff are on hand at the birth
• managing high-risk pregnancies to make sure babies are born in the best place
• improving transfers between services where necessary

Ann Keen, a former nurse who will be overseeing the implementation of the toolkit, said: “The unit at UCH is obviously so highly regarded, not just in the UK but worldwide – it’s an obvious centre of excellence.”

But she said that even in a high performing unit there still needed to be an openness and willingness to listen and learn from the experience of parents.

She added: “The most important thing to me is that everybody who was with me today was prepared to listen and learn. I have gained more knowledge today about how the toolkit will be implemented and I am grateful to the parents I met for being so open with me.”

The University College Hospital Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Wing opened in November 2008 and was formally opened in January 2009 by HRH The Princess Royal. The neonatal unit is the perinatal centre for the North Central London Perinatal Network. The unit offers a truly multi-disciplinary service with the full range of professionals including speech and language therapy, dietetics and psychology. Parent facilities and support is provided, the latter in conjunction with Bliss. The neonatal service has 15 special care beds and 17 neonatal intensive/high dependency care cots.