Professional/Short course Neonatal Critical Care

Content

In line with the Department of Health (DH) and the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) recommendations, the modules encourage the achievement of professional proficiency through reflection, discussion, debate, evaluation, critical analysis and development of clinical expertise.

Competence in delivering a high standard of neonatal care falls under the following core dimensions:

• Communication and interpersonal relationships
• Personal, professional and people development
• Health, safety and security
• Service development
• Quality
• Equality, diversity and rights
• Responsibility for holistic patient care

Core clinical skills for neonatal nurses include:

• Fluid, electrolyte, nutrition and elimination management
• Neurological, pain and stress management
• Respiratory and cardiovascular management
• Thermoregulation, skin, hygiene and infection prevention/processesgulation
• Managing and supporting the family
• Investigations and procedures as applied to neonatal nursing
• Use of equipment as applied to neonatal nursing
• End of life and palliative neonatal care
• Surgical interventions in the neonatal period

Professional critical analysis related to

• Risk assessment and critical incident management
• Use of validated tools for effective assessment and evaluation
• Application of service enhancement frameworks and governance to enhance decision making
• Ethical, social and legal issues which impact on neonatal service provision
• Scope of accountability, leadership and practice enhancement
• Interprofessional and advanced communication.

Learning and Teaching

Teaching will be delivered using a variety of approaches which include:

• lectures
• seminars
• experts from and recipients of neonatal services
• e-learning
• analysis of case studies
• explorative workshops.

Assessment

The assessment strategy has been developed in negotiation with the neonatal critical care network to ensure parity against national standards in neonatal services.