Lancashire Women and Newborn Centre at Burnley is a new purpose built Level 3 Neonatal Unit
which became operational from mid November 2010. All the maternity and Neonatal inpatient care
is centralised.
This post of Junior clinical fellow is based in Neonatology and vacancy is due to gap in the rota as
the clinical fellow who was in this post has moved to another hospital. The Neonatal unit at ELHT
has 9 substantive Consultants. The post will be based at Burnley General Hospital.
The post holder will join first on call team comprising 8 FY2 trainees, 1 Paediatric ST Trainee, 7
ANNPs and 5 clinical fellows.
This post offers excellent experience and training in acute and outpatient settings. The post holder
will participate in full shift rota. The rota is compliant with new junior doctor’s contract and there are
15 people on this rota with 2 persons out of hours all the time including weekends.
The development of a Level 3 Neonatal Intensive Care service for East Lancashire was approved
by the Lancs/ S. Cumbria SHA in June 2006.
The 2 neonatal services at Blackburn and Burnley came together as an East Lancs Level 3
service from Nov 2010. The new Unit is a purpose built, state of the art build, designed to the
highest specifications as per BAPM standards.
The Neonatal Unit at LWNC has 6 intensive care cots, 8 high dependency cots and 20 special
care cots with a total cot capacity of 34 cots. In addition there are 2 isolation cots. The single East
Lancs unit is a level 3 Unit catering for a delivery rate of 6500 per year.
The East Lancs conurbation has 3 birthing centres. It is proposed that ~5000 deliveries (mediumhigh risk) will occur on the hospital site. The remaining ~ 1500 deliveries are managed in 3 birthing
centres, 1 co-located birth centre in Burnley on the hospital site and 2 based in the community in
Blackburn and Rossendale.
The neonatal Transport and Retrieval service for the Lancashire and S Cumbria zone (STARS)
has ceased and moved to a Northwest footprint as CONNECT NW.
NTU (Neonatal Triage Unit) - This is based at the entrance to the Postnatal Ward. This has been
set up to address the postnatal implications of Birth centre deliveries and an A and E dept at a
separate site, for babies who for any reason, need review soon after birth, though not necessarily
qualifying for admission to NICU. This is a new innovation and probably the only one of its kind in
the country.
Transitional Care (TC) Unit- This is based in Phase 5 adjacent to the postnatal wards. The TC Unit
is staffed to 12 cots and is supported by a TC neonatal nurse 12 hours a day and full time by
experienced midwives.
A fully trained Consultant Ophthalmologist provides a full screening service for retinopathy of
prematurity across East Lancs.
All Neonatal Consultants run an antenatal advisory service for prospective parents when
abnormalities have been detected in utero, to plan postnatal management. The new appointee
maybe be expected to contribute to this.
The Obstetric service in LWNC is provided by 18 Consultants. Antenatal care provision occurs at
Blackburn, Rossendale, Accrington and LWNC. In addition there is Caseload midwifery care
provision for women needing increased support. The Obstetric service provides an Ultrasound
service on both sites, Burnley General and Royal Blackburn Hospitals. Dating scans including
nuchal translucency screening and 20 week anomaly scans are routinely performed.
In addition there is a Level 3 scanning service for foetal anomalies. A Multiple pregnancy clinic is
in place. Medical antenatal clinics run on both hospital sites.
