Census of availability of neonatal intensive care should have used different denominator

doi:10.1136/bmj.322.7287.675/b

BMJ 2001;322:675 ( 17 March )

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Census of availability of neonatal intensive care should have used different denominator

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR $---$ Parmanum et al documented the number of maternal and neonatal transfers occurring from referral centres in the UnitedKingdom during a specified three month period.¹ They attemptto give some epidemiological perspective to the observed numbers,but the denominator that they used to calculate the rate per 1000deliveries, at least in Wessex, is the total number of deliveriesin the whole region rather than the number occurring in Southampton,which was the centre involved in thestudy.

The university hospital in Southampton provides several tertiary services relating to neonates, but the neonatal medical unitis not funded as a regional referral centre. Most of the neonatalintensive care within Wessex takes place in the nine districtgeneral hospitals in the region, all of which offer level 1 neonatalintensivecare.

A more representative denominator, therefore, would be the number of deliveries taking place within Southampton $---$ 4837 duringthe . . . [Full text of this article]

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National census of availability of neonatal intensive care: Jill Parmanum, David Field, Janet Rennie, and Philip Steer
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