Neonatal Outreach Team
The Neonatal Outreach Team is a team of neonatal nurses who provide nursing care and support for babies and their families after discharge home from the Neonatal Unit.
Why might we be involved in your baby’s care?
- Pre-term babies ≤33 weeks
- Babies born on or below 2nd centile
- Babies discharged on or below 2nd centile
- Babies that have dropped 2 or more centiles
- Feeding problems/poor weight gain
- Long term/short term home nasogastric tube feeding
- Babies on breast milk fortifier boosts
- Oxygen dependent babies
- Those with cardiac issues requiring monitoring
- Any complex medication regimes
- Hyperinsulinism
- Epoetin injections
- Request from medical team
The Neonatal team can care for your family until your baby is one year of age. After this your care will be transferred to the paediatric outreach team.
Who else might be involved in your baby’s care?
We work alongside many other health care professionals. These include:
- Health visitors
- Hospital consultants
- GPs
- Midwives
- Physiotherapists
- Speech and language therapists (SALT)
- Occupational therapists
- Dieticians
- Social workers
What we do:
We help to prepare you for taking your baby home and ensure you feel confident and ready for the transition from hospital to home. We do this by providing teaching, information and facilitating discharge offering family centred care. We work alongside the Neonatal Unit Discharge co-ordinator prior to your baby’s discharge.
We offer all parents/carers and any additional family members if required the following training prior to discharge home from the Neonatal Unit.
- Parentcraft: Information and support on breast and bottle feeding, bathing, going home on medications, safe sleeping guidelines, recognising signs of illness, relevant healthcare professional to contact and how to access this medical help.
- Basic Life Support (BLS): BLS training is offered to parents/carers and any additional family members if required that have had a baby on the Neonatal Unit. The BLS training is carried out prior to discharge home.
- Discharge planning: We work as part of the multidisciplinary team during the discharge process. This ensures everything is in place for discharge home
What we provide when you are home
- Home visits: The frequency of home visits will vary depending on each family, tailored to suit each baby’s needs.
- Telephone contact: We are contactable Monday – Friday 8am-6pm. Our contact numbers will be on a sticker in your baby’s red book.
- Outpatient appointments: If we are required to attend with you this will be arranged prior to your appointment
- We will discuss with you the relevant healthcare professionals to contact in case of an emergency