Resuscitation Council UK (RCUK), with support from New Life Special Care Babies, has developed a pre-hospital Newborn Life Support (NLS) course to reduce neonatal mortality rates and negative clinical outcomes.
The course is designed for those working in the pre-hospital setting such as paramedics, nurses and community midwives who have limited opportunities for tailored training to assist them in the care of critically ill or premature babies.
The pre-hospital NLS course, which is an extension of the Newborn Life Support Course – delivered annually by 7,000 healthcare professionals – focuses on areas such as thermal care, airway management, resuscitation, critical teamwork and communication skills.
Two ‘test courses’, supported by New Life Special Care Babies, were held in Exeter in November; The courses were rated positively by the participants.
dr Joe Fawke, Consultant Neonatologist and Chair of the Newborn Life Support Subcommittee of Resuscitation Council UK, says: “The new Resuscitation Council UK (RCUK) Pre-Hospital Life Support course builds on and leverages the strengths of the long-running successful Newborn Life Support course by preclinical experts and experts from RCUK. It teaches essential skills to stabilize homeborn babies and transport them safely to the hospital when needed, and supports the training of paramedics and community teams. We are delighted to be working with New Life, who supported the development of this new course, and with the College of Paramedics. This course will help out-of-hospital babies who need support to have the best start in life.”
dr Sarah Bates, who was part of the course development group, says: “Paramedics and other pre-hospital physicians rarely have the opportunity to undertake specific neonatal life support training, and yet South West Ambulance crews attend at least one baby a week unexpectedly at home is born, premature or sick babies need to be stabilized. Community midwives attend hundreds of home births throughout the Southwest each year. Some are planned home births where the baby will need unexpected resuscitation, and others are unplanned, unexpected home births where the baby may need significant additional life-saving assistance.
Simple procedures like keeping preterm babies warm are so difficult to perform in prehospital settings. For each of these poor babies born outside of a hospital, having life-saving resuscitation skills provided by a highly trained team to their survival and long-term outcome really makes a difference.”
The charity New Life has had a long association with the hospital and its neonatal counselors and team after CEO Trevor Goodall’s twin sons, Joshua and Samuel, were looked after after they were born at the age of 24 weeks. Unfortunately, both boys died a week later. Mr Goodall has made it his life’s work to raise as much money as possible for premature and very sick babies across the UK and after hitting £1million in 2021 he is now focusing on reaching £2million.
To contact the charity, email trevor@newlifebabies.org.uk
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For more information, please contact:
Debbie Jacobs (press and media) on debbienewlifebabies@gmail.com
Stella Hindle, campaign and media manager stella.hindle@resus.org.uk or
Notes for editors
According to statistics published by Bliss, around 80,000 babies are born prematurely each year. This means over 2 million premature babies have been born in the UK since the charity started 26 years ago.
The charity was founded in 1995 after Trevor’s twins, Joshua and Samuel, were born prematurely and sadly died shortly thereafter.
For more information, please visit newlifebabies.org.uk.
Resuscitation Council UK saves lives by developing guidelines, influencing policy, providing courses and supporting cutting-edge research. Through education, training and research, we are working toward the day when everyone in the country has the skills they need to save lives.
For more information, please visit resus.org.uk or contact us at courses@resus.org.uk.
