Bradford Teaching Hospitals has announced the £2million expansion of the neonatal unit.

The new facility aims to improve the quality of the environment around every baby needing expert care and the improved unit will deliver the best conditions for babies and their families. 

Neonatologist Chris Day said: “This expansion will improve the way the neonatal unit works to enhance the experience of families and their babies. 

“In the past, demand for our specialist services has sometimes exceeded our capacity and this has led to babies, who should have been able to have all their highly specialist care here, being transferred to other regional centres. 

“This new development will enable us to use our existing highly specialist equipment and staff to their full potential maintaining Bradford’s place as a centre of excellence for neonatal intensive care.”

The unit currently comprises of 27 cots including five intensive care, five high dependency and 17 low dependency (or special care) cots.  Babies delivered in other hospitals are transferred here for the highest levels of intensive care.

The first phase of the recently-announced expansion is due to begin in January and will include a ground floor extension to the unit, based within Maternity, and the opening of two new intensive care cots with space for a further two cots to be opened in the future.

The building work will take a year to complete.

The development meets the Foundation Trust’s corporate priorities of more care close to patients’ homes and the best quality and safety of care resulting in outstanding patient satisfaction.