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HeadlineParents and MPs protest closure threat to Whittington neonatal unit

Short HeadlineCampaigners protest neonatal unit closure threat

StandfirstCampaigner are fighting to keep the NICU and maternity ward open, after the local NHS board considers its closure due to a decline in births and available funding.

Parents and MPs held a campaign last week to prevent the potential closure of Whittington hospital’s neonatal unit in Islington.

On 10 February, the Whittington Babies charity held a meeting at Lauderdale House to ask parents and community leaders to object to a consultation that would close the only specialist ward for premature births under 27 weeks, in North London.

Pia Ingberg, chair of Whittington Babies charity, and a parent whose son was born on the neonatal unit, told City News: “Other hospitals don’t currently have the expertise of looking after the smallest babies”.

Ingberg said that if there were any problems with Whittington hospital’s neonatal babies, they “would be sent to other hospitals, so there would be a lot of training and getting them up and running.

“[This] kind of seems mad, when we have a hospital which is functioning very well in that sense and we already have the staff and the expertise.”

The public consultation released in January 2024 by NHS’ Northern Central London Integrated System (NCLICS) and North Central London Integrated Care Board (ICB) said Whittington Hospital’s is one of three neonatal units at risk of closure.

The others include Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead and University College London Hospital (UCLH).

However, the Whittington Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) is also one of the only in North London that offers 24-hour specialist care for newborns and consultants.

The other available unit, the Royal Free Hospital, only takes them from 34 weeks old.

The decrease in north London births and available NHS funding has the ward, and others like it, at risk with fundingreallocated elsewhere.

Whittington’s neonatal intensive care unit is second choice of a number of NICU hospitals and wards risking closure.

At a meeting in December 2023, hosted by the North Central London NHS Trust’s integrated care board, they said one of the biggest risks is “insufficient capital funding” to support the neonatal unit.

Documents by the NHS trust say that “to mitigate this risk the programme is working with the ICS to understand the medium-term availability of capital across the system12, and Start Well has been identified as a system priority within this allocation by all NCL CEOs via the System Management Board.”

Local MPs push for further support

MPs Jeremy Corbyn and Catherine West both spoke at the campaign, lending their support to parents and campaigners.

Ms West, the MP for Hornsey and Wood Green, said: “[The] hospital desperately needs more capital funding to fix up some of its Victorian facilities for very small babies.

“The second thing we really need to do is to focus on the cover of the midwives, the anaesthetists and the specialists so that if there is a birth where more help is required for a mother, we have all of the specialists on hand.”

City News has approached the NCLICS and Whittington Hospital for comment, who have yet to respond to the request.