In this section
The Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU) provides specialist medical and surgical care for: babies born early, babies with health problems diagnosed before birth or after birth and full-term babies who have unexpectedly become unwell.
Research enables us to develop and improve the nursing and medical care we give. We can test new treatments and medications and improve current ones through research. We can enhance the quality of our services and improve the health of patients by carrying out research in NICU. The research team is committed to ensure that babies within the unit benefit from cutting edge research. Research activity includes a range of our own local research, studies as part of academic programmes for MSc and PhD, commercial and portfolio studies both national and international.
Research enables us to develop and improve the nursing and medical care we give. We can test new treatments and medications and improve current ones through research. We can enhance the quality of our services and improve the health of patients by carrying out research in NICU.
The NICU Research Team is committed to ensure that babies within the unit benefit from cutting edge research and ensure that families are given every opportunity to be involved in research if their baby is eligible to participate in any studies.
The Research Team are responsible for the safety and quality of research activity in the NICU as set out by the NHS Health Research Authority. Responsibilities also include identifying potential studies, advising on protocol development, local set up for new studies and the smooth running, monitoring and reporting of studies in the NICU. An important part of our role includes training and supporting of the clinical staff to ensure that the schedule of study assessments is met and that the medical, nursing and wider clinical team are supported at all times.
Research activity includes a range of our own local research, studies as part of academic programmes for MSc and PhD, commercial and portfolio studies both national and international.
Examples of our research work include the Prevail Study where we recruited our overall target number of 60 participants (6 months ahead of schedule) and despite being a site that opened later than most of the others; we were joint 2nd highest recruiter out of the 18 sites involved. Since Prevail closed to recruitment in December 2016 we have opened to the Neovanc study and have recruited the first five babies in the UK.
In our experience, parents welcome the opportunity to learn about studies their baby may be eligible to take part in. They can then make the choice of whether they would like to participate or not.