24-hour specialist transport for sick babies in East Anglia

From Monday 5 October, the region's sickest newborn babies will have a dedicated round-the-clock service to take them to hospitals which can provide specialist care.

The Acute Neonatal Transfer Service (ANTS), based at the Rosie Hospital, Cambridge, is one of the busiest teams of its kind in the country. ANTS provides a vital service for East Anglia - last year it transferred 760 babies between the region’s 18 maternity units or to specialist hospitals out of the area.

 

Until now, ANTS has been funded to run in the daytime. From the start of October the service will be available 24 hours a day. When babies are sick it is sometimes necessary for them to be moved to a hospital better matched to meet their needs – this is where ANTS come in. The service was founded in 2003 to lower the risks involved with transferring sick babies.

Dr Kate Farrer, ANTS Lead Consultant, said: “Specialist teams of nurses, doctors and drivers using dedicated equipment achieve transfers more safely, leaving staff in the referring units to look after the more stable babies. We’re delighted to be able to launch the extension of the service to cover the night as well as the day - it has been eagerly awaited.”

 

 

ANTS supporter David Creamer, whose daughter Skyla was transferred from Ipswich to The Rosie in Cambridge for specialist care, also welcomed the news. Mr Creamer, from Felixstowe in Suffolk, said: “It’s great that the ANTS service is being extended. My daughter was born eight weeks early – there were complications and she needed to be transferred. ANTS treated her with care and respect – you could not fault them. They are not a service which gets a lot of recognition, which is why I chose to raise money for them.”

 

Mr Creamer raised £500 for the service earlier this year during a charity abseil.

ANTS is overseen and operated by a partnership involving the East of England Perinatal Network, the East of England Specialised Commissioning Group, the East of England Ambulance Trust and Cambridge University Hospitals.

Trevor Myers, from the East of England Specialised Commissioning Group, said: "I am very proud to be the commissioner responsible for this important service. These vulnerable babies and their parents deserve the very best services possible. The new dedicated 24-hour transport service is part of this commitment."

Sarah Davis, Lead Nurse for the East of England Perinatal Network, said: "The East of England Perinatal Network team is committed to improving neonatal care across the region. Increasing the transfer service from 12 to 24 hours has been a key objective and we are delighted that this vision is now becoming a reality."

The ANTS team serves the hospitals of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. Using ambulances specially adapted for babies, ANTS perform emergency transfers for very sick babies requiring specialist treatment at another hospital and planned transfers when recovering babies are taken back to the hospital nearest to their homes.

Commenting on the new 24-hour service, Dr Jag Ahluwalia, Medical Director for Cambridge University Hospitals, said: “This will help all of the acute provider trusts in the East of England to ensure safe and timely transfer of sick infants round the clock to units where their on-going care can be most appropriately delivered.”

 

 

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