There are currently 10 neonatal operational delivery networks within England.
The neonatal networks in the South East region consist of the Thames Valley & Wessex Neonatal Operational Delivery Network, and the Kent, Surrey & Sussex Neonatal Operational Delivery Network.
What is an operational delivery network?
The delivery of neonatal care for premature and sick babies is organised into geographical areas where hospitals work together, and these are called neonatal operational delivery networks. Operational delivery networks, or ODNs, are formal structures in which hospital Trusts, commissioners and patients work together to optimise healthcare and ensure the best possible outcomes. They focus on coordinating patient pathways between hospitals over a wide area to ensure access to specialist resources and expertise. There may be occasions that necessitate transfer to different hospitals either within or outside of a network to access the specialist care required.
The networks need to ensure that cot capacity throughout the region is maintained, therefore when a baby is well enough, they will be transferred back to the family’s local hospital for ongoing high dependency or special care.
The purpose of a neonatal ODN
- To provide care as close to home as possible for babies and their families
- To monitor service and clinical quality against national neonatal standards through audit, benchmarking and research
- To provide safe and equitable care across the network
- To develop neonatal workforce strategies to support services and ensure future sustainability
- To support neonatal families as partners in care and embed co-production ensuring the service user voice is heard
- To provide accessible education and training programmes for clinical staff
- To promote and share evidence-based practice and lead on quality improvement
- To promote team working and communication
- To develop, implement and monitor neonatal clinical pathways
- To develop and implement neonatal clinical practice guidelines
The ODNs work in collaboration with the Maternity Clinical Networks and Local Maternity and Neonatal Systems (LMNS) to ensure that neonatal services are integrated into maternity planning and transformation workstreams. Other partnership working on maternity and neonatal quality and safety is with the Academic Health Sciences Networks’ (AHSN) Maternity and Neonatal Safety Improvement Programmes (Mat Neo SIP).