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Maternity Unit
Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU)
Contact: (0191) 282 5756 - Helen Grey, Specialist Nurse, Neonatology
The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (Special Care Baby Unit - SCBU) is located in the Maternity Department at the Royal Victoria Infirmary and provides highly specialist intensive care for babies who are born prematurely or become very unwell.
We look after babies here who have been born anywhere across the northern region.
The care we provide is very much baby and family-centred and delivered by an enthusiastic and friendly team including doctors, neonatal nurses and physiotherapists who all have the experience and expertise to ensure the very best care is available for your newborn baby.
As parents, you can be as involved as you wish in your baby’s care, you can attend doctors’ review meetings where your baby's care and treatment is discussed, and you are encourage to carry out important tasks such as nappy changing and so on. Each baby’s notes are kept beside their incubator and parents are most welcome to read and comment on them at any time.
Specialist care and advice where and when you need it
The medical care of these vulnerable newborns is consultant led, supported by nursing teams on all three areas of the unit:
- intensive care
- high dependency
- special care
Your baby will be cared for in one of these areas, depending on your baby’s individual needs.
Small babies who are being tube fed and have no other problems may be transferred when all is well to be cared for on the postnatal ward with their mother, with the continued support of a neonatal nurse who works exclusively on the postnatal wards. This ensures that babies are not separated, wherever possible from their mother in their early days of life.
Specialist transfer service
If it has been decided your baby is well enough to be transferred from our Neonatal Intensive Care Unit to another hospital, you can be taken by ambulance with paramedics who have undergone thorough specialist training to ensure a safe transfer can be made and any care your baby may need during the journey can be given. This transfer service is unique to Newcastle and means that our own staff do not have to leave the unit leaving it understaffed.
When babies are discharged home they may benefit from community nurse visits. Some infants are oxygen dependant and/or need to be tube fed and you will be given ongoing support and education so that you can continue to look after your baby when the unit staff decide your baby is ready to go home.
