With the success of our project to place pulse oximetry machines in hospitals we are now opening up our application process for NHS Trusts to acquire machines for newborn testing. We work to improve the early detection and treatment of babies with congenital heart disease (CHD). We recognise the important role that pulse oximetry testing of newborns can have in detection of CHD – so this fund is suitable for NHS Trusts wishing to acquire machines for newborn testing.*
Pulse oximetry testing as a newborn screening tool is a relatively new development, and one that many countries around the world are now either introducing or considering. In this country, it is currently up to individual hospital trusts to decide whether to offer the test to their patients – with recent research showing around 40% (and increasing) of NHS Trusts are already doing so. We hope this project will accelerate the take-up of the test in the UK. The UK National Screening Committee is actively considering whether to include the test as part of their national screening programme, so it may become a mandatory test in the future.
To date we have now placed 86 machines across the UK, enabling an estimated 120,000 babies annually to receive the test that could help save their life. With 1 in every 125 babies having a serious heart condition, around 960 of these may have CHD. As the national average antenatal detection rate sits around 50%, this means that around 480 babies may remain undetected at birth and thus have a better chance of their heart defect being detected thanks to a pulse oximetry test soon after birth using machines we have already placed.
If you work for an NHS Trust or in a frontline maternity unit that does not currently offer the test, then we may be able to fund machines for you. Please let us know by filling out this application here or emailing pulseox@tinytickers.org with the name of the hospital and contact details of the maternity unit. You can see where we have already funded machines by visiting our Pulse Oximetry map of machines placed.
*Please note, as per our charitable objectives, pulse oximetry machines are funded by Tiny Tickers for the purposes of assisting with the possible detection of congenital heart disease in newborn babies.
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