NEW and modernised ambulances came into service to support hundreds of babies and children taken to a hospital in Oxford for emergency treatment.

Seven more vehicles will be used for young patients needing specialist treatment at the Neonatal Intensive Care (NICU) and Paediatric Intensive Care (PICU) units at the John Radcliffe Hospital.

Provided and run by the British Emergency Ambulance Response Service (BEARS), they will support the team that cares for the patient groups at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

The new ambulances are more spacious and include room for additional equipment such as a drugs refrigerator, patient cooling equipment, and a phototherapy unit, so can act as mobile intensive care units for babies and children of all ages.

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There is also more room to accommodate parents and an additional clinical team member during travel, and the fleet offers a safe and comfortable working space for those on board.

In addition, new WiFi access means doctors and nurses have access to electronic patient records and medical information while en route.

Neonates and children have very specific needs – one size does not fit all – so the cabin has been streamlined to provide space for specialised lifesaving equipment to be carried that covers all ages.

Deirdre O’Shea, consultant in paediatric intensive care and SORT Lead at OUH, said: "Having more vehicles with modern equipment will improve the quality, flexibility, and reliability of patient care.

"We provide specialised critical care for children with complex needs ranging from early infancy to adolescence across the Thames Valley Paediatric Critical Care Network, and collaborating with BEARS will allow for best practise in every case.

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"The vehicle is effectively a moving paediatric ICU environment that ensures access to adequate space and state of the art equipment for the highly skilled multidisciplinary team to provide the care that these youngsters need.

"This is always a most distressing time for parents and by working in partnership with families from the outset, at the time of transport to our tertiary critical care unit in a fully functional mobile ICU environment, we can ease their journey and encourage trust and confidence."

The new vehicles will also be shared with the Southampton Oxford Neonatal Transport (SONeT) service for babies and the Southampton Oxford Retrieval Team (SORT) for all infants and children (up to the age of 16).

The combined services are set to move more than 1,000 patients a year from local hospitals to our specialised centres, with activity shared between Oxford and Southampton partners.