Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

We completely understand that parents struggle when they are separated from their baby and because of this, we have 24 hour visiting for parents to ensure that they have unrestricted access to their baby. Siblings may accompany parents when they visit but we do request that young children do not visit NICU after 8pm – we do not allow children other than siblings to visit NICU.

Additional visitors are welcome during our visiting times of 2pm until 4pm and 6pm until 8pm – we respectfully request that visitors do not visit outside of these hours but, on the occasions where it is necessary for a visitor to visit outside of these hours, permission must be gained from the nurse in charge. Two visitors, in addition to the baby’s parents, may visit the baby, with additional visitors being required to wait in the NICU waiting area – this is to minimise overcrowding and noise and also to enable nursing staff to quickly and easily reach a baby if a problem occurs.

We have ‘Quiet Time’ between 2pm and 4pm which is strictly parents only – this is part of our Developmental Care programme to help stabilise the babies that are receiving care on NICU and to facilitate their recovery and development.

As with the rest of the maternity unit, NICU has a very strict hygiene policy. We ask that all visitor’s, staff and parents:

• Please make sure you are wearing a face mask/covering when entering the unit
• Wash their hands on entering and exiting the unit and use the hand gel provided at each cot;
• Remove outdoor coats prior to entering NICU;
• Do not bring flowers onto NICU;
• Please stay away from NICU if unwell in any way and especially if suffering from a cough, cold, diarrhoea, vomiting, chicken pox, shingles, measles or any other infections illness.

We also request that mobile devices are used sparingly whilst on NICU and that they are switched to ‘Airplane mode’ for the duration of your visit. 

It is not unusual to feel nervous about taking your baby home for the first time. The Neonatal outreach team Supports families with babies who have stayed on our NICU at Peterborough City Hospital or SCBU at Hinchingbrooke hospital.  If you have had a stay on one of our post-natal wards e.g. transitional care or Lilac ward and have had a baby that has been born before 37 weeks or below 2.5kg, you are also offered the support of the Neonatal Outreach team.

We are a team of experienced neonatal nurses and nursery nurses, who are specifically trained in the care of the neonate. We are based on the NICU at Peterborough City Hospital and SCBU at Hinchingbrooke Hospital

We aim to work with you to support and empower you to care for your baby at home following early discharge from the unit. If your baby is tube feeding but taking some oral feeds we can support discharge and help establish feeding at home, this may not be suitable for all families and will be offered to families on a case by case basis.  If your baby is still needing oxygen once they reach 36 weeks corrected gestation, the Outreach team will talk to you about the practical side of caring for your baby at home.  We will meet with you on the ward before discharge to arrange a home visit, during your baby’s stay and together identify your baby’s needs, agreeing a plan of care.  The best time to meet you on NICU is on ward round on Thursday mornings from 08.30.

Contacting the service:

A Member of the Outreach team can be contacted in the office between the hours of 8am and 9am on:

• 01733 677235 – Peterborough
• 01480 416238 – Hinchingbrooke

There is an answerphone facility on the above numbers to take messages when the office is unattended. Please leave your name and contact number and and an outreach nurse will contact you back as soon as possible. Visits are usually between the hours or 09.00 and 16.00 hours.

Once you are home

Once you are home we aim to contact you within 48 hours, this is a chance to talk about how you are feeling, and we can answer any questions that you may have, we will then arrange a visit with you.   We will visit and support with Feeding, we will weigh your baby and monitor they weight gain. We can take observations, blood samples, change a nasogastric tube.  We work closely with the infant feeding team at the hospital and in community.

Please be aware that Outreach is not compulsory and does not replace existing agencies such as your midwife (if your baby is under 10 days old at discharge), health visitor, or GP – we work alongside these to best support you. The amount of Outreach support you receive is dependent on individual needs and circumstances.  We will keep in regular contact with your Health Visitor/GP/dietician/salt/physiotherapist and Consultant Paediatrician to ensure your baby receives the care they need.

If your baby still requires medical support after 44 weeks gestation, their care will be handed over to the Children’s Community Nursing team.  Your Health Visitor will continue to provide support throughout.

How often will we visit or phone?

The number of visits/phone contacts we make will depend on each individual family and the needs identified—we will speak with you about what is best for you.  We are able to visit/phone 5-7 days a week, and we will arrange our visits/phone contacts in advance with you.  On occasion, it may be that we bring a children’s nursing/midwifery student out with us on visits. 

We cover a large geographical area, so we ask families to be understanding about punctuality for home visits.  Because of our workload in the community and in discharge planning at hospital, we are unable to give precise appointment times. We will text or phone the morning of the visit to confirm our visit that day. We will endeavour to ring if we are delayed, but this may not always be possible.  Please keep us updated with any appointments you may already have at hospital so that we can help make best use of your time.  Due to bad weather or staff sickness, we may have to cancel or rearrange appointments at very short notice.  However, we will always try to get to you or at least speak with you on the telephone.

To ensure the Outreach programme meets the needs of its users, a questionnaire is given to all parents who have received Outreach support. These are completely confidential, and you can write as little or as much as you wish – obviously the more you write the more useful this is to us, so that we can continuously improve the service we offer.

Parents are viewed as partners in care and encouraged to participate in the planning and delivery of care to their baby – however, the extent of their involvement may depend upon factors such as their baby’s condition and their own levels of confidence.  We encourage all parents to do as much as they feel able to do and we support parents to learn to care for their baby. For example, giving feeds via a feeding tube, changing nappies and giving mouth-care and eye-care. We also support and encourage mothers to express their breastmilk for their baby as this is of particular importance to small or sick babies.

As the NICU is the first nursery for many babies, we also encourage parents to bring in items that will help to personalise their baby’s cot space or that they know are going to be ‘special’ items to their baby as they grow. Items such as teddy bears, blankets, comforters and family photographs are all lovely additions to a cot or incubator and help to make a baby’s cot look less clinical and more homely. When babies are able to be dressed, we also welcome clothing that may have been purchased especially for the new arrival – nursing staff will be happy to help and advice upon when it is possible to dress your baby and the type of clothing that is likely to be most appropriate.

If any parents wish to discuss any issues regarding their baby or their home circumstances they may either speak to the nurse/midwife caring for their baby or ask to speak to the neonatal unit manager. Parents have access to medical staff at all times, and an appointment can be made to speak with the consultant with overall responsibility for your baby’s care. 

We are part of a regional network that works together to ensure our babies receive the best possible treatment and care – this network comprises sixteen hospitals and it covers Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire. Babies who need longer term intensive care, or babies who are born less than 30 weeks at Hinchingbrooke, are transferred out to one of the larger hospitals within our region by a specialist neonatal transport service. More often than not, babies from Hinchingbrooke Hospital are transferred to The Rosie Hospital in Cambridge but, occasionally it is necessary for babies to be transferred to Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, Luton and Dunstable Hospital or Great Ormond Street Hospital.

When babies are well enough to go home, we offer an outreach service that provides telephone support and advice in addition to appointments in your home. Our outreach service also runs baby clinics in the antenatal clinic on Monday afternoons and all day on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.