Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee 26 November 2025
The care that individual babies receive is divided into various levels, and individual neonatal units provide certain levels of care. The highest level of care is provided by neonatal intensive care units, which are the most complex, largest units. Those are the tertiary units that care for babies across a wider region and look after the smallest and sickest babies.
Local neonatal units tend to be smaller units at local hospitals. They care for babies who are born early—in general, babies from 28 weeks and above—but not the smallest and sickest babies. Special care baby units tend to be slightly smaller facilities that provide care for babies at higher gestations who do not receive any intensive care. In local neonatal units, short-term intensive care can be provided, but babies who need long-term intensive care are cared for solely at neonatal intensive care units.
As you will be aware, the British Association of Perinatal Medicine and associated services have defined levels of dependency and activity that a unit must be engaged in—that is, the number of babies who are looked after and the number of intensive care days that are provided—if it is to be designated as a neonatal intensive care unit or a local neonatal unit. Those levels ensure that the throughput for the larger neonatal intensive care units is sufficient in order to meet the criteria that we know help to improve outcomes.