Safety recommendation
HSIB recommends that the Resuscitation Council (UK)’s Newborn Life Support training course highlights that neonatal resuscitation teams should consider fetal blood loss in the event of neonatal resuscitation that includes chest compressions. In addition, this consideration should be included in the guidance to support the newborn life support algorithm.
Response:
Resuscitation Council UK (RCUK) was happy to work with HSIB to improve the safe care of babies at birth. As RCUK is the expert organisation for guidelines for resuscitation of the newborn infant, we were able to share expertise with HSIB on emergency blood transfusion at birth. We worked with HSIB to agree a common ground for the report and the information contained in our newborn resuscitation courses.
As a result, we have updated the lecture notes used on our newborn resuscitation courses to include the need to consider the need for O-ve blood as part of the assessment at birth lecture. We also include acute blood loss at birth and the need for O-ve blood in one of the simulations that can be used in the RCUK Newborn Life Support course. All centres delivering our courses have been informed about the updates and there has been a positive response to the changes from our Instructor base.
Our UK resuscitation guidelines are written using scientific evidence taken from international guidelines and updated on a five year cycle. All evidence will be reviewed for the next update and further revisions made where needed.
Response received on 29 April 2022.
Updated response received on 10 October 2022.