National Neonatal Transport Programme

The National Neonatal Transport Programme (NNTP), is a 24/7 retrieval service for the stabilisation and transportation of premature and sick neonates up to 28 days corrected gestational age, who require transfer for specialist care within Ireland and abroad.

The NNTP is serviced by skilled clinical teams from the three Dublin maternity hospitals and ambulance crew from the National Ambulance service. Under the supervision of dedicated transport neonatologists, there is a designated neonatal transport nurse and registrar, together with a designated NAS critical-care ambulance operator (and specifically designed ambulance), available to mobilise within 45 minutes to any hospital for a sick infant.

Around 600 neonates are transported annually by the NNTP, a figure which represents 92% of the total number of newborn infants transferred for critical care in Ireland each year. While the majority are brought to the Dublin paediatric and maternity hospitals, the NNTP also transports neonates to/from the regional neonatal/surgical intensive care units and internationally as required.

In addition to the provision of a transport service, the NNTP provides clinical guidance, team training and outreach education and engages in audit and research. The NNTP assists with the sourcing of neonatal beds through its daily NICU bed-status and hosts a national neonatal activity census on its website. The NNTP also has a centralised data collection system to facilitate systematic review and ongoing quality improvement of the programme.  

For more information about this service, please link to the NNTP’s website: www.nntp.ie