This month, the National Neonatal Audit Programme (NNAP) published its latest data on babies discharged from neonatal care in 2025. This is the second annual dataset to include information on ethnicity, providing an opportunity to begin identifying trends in outcomes affecting babies from minoritised backgrounds. Bliss welcomes this continued inclusion, however the absence of socioeconomic data remains a significant gap, limiting our understanding of how wider social determinants of health influence the care a baby receives upon admission to a neonatal unit.
While the data shows slight improvements across many measures overall - such as neonatal staffing levels, parent inclusion in ward rounds, medical follow ups, perinatal care optimisation, and the number of babies born at a site with a NICU - it also highlights that disparities in the care given to babies based on their ethnic background remain entrenched.
Babies born to mothers from minoritised backgrounds continue to experience poorer care across many measures when compared with babies whose mothers are White. There also remains a significant variation in some measures of care received by babies dependent on geographical location.
The data highlights the need for continued focus on tackling inequalities within neonatal services to ensure that all babies receive equitable care and the best possible chance of going on to thrive.
Caroline Lee-Davey, Bliss Chief Executive, said: “While it is positive to see some continued incremental improvements in many measures of neonatal care overall, this data makes clear that unacceptable inequalities persist. Babies born to mothers from minoritised backgrounds continue to face poorer care, and addressing this must remain an urgent priority.
“Bliss welcomes the continued inclusion of ethnicity data, which helps shine a light on disparities that have too often been hidden. Better data is essential to driving meaningful change and ensuring that every baby receives the best possible care, regardless of their background.
“We know that socioeconomic deprivation is also strongly linked to neonatal admissions, morbidity, and mortality, and there is an urgent need to understand how socio-economic status and geographical location impact the care a baby receives.
“Bliss’ recently-published Equity for Every baby report sets out further insights and evidence on the impact on inequalities in neonatal care, and we would encourage units to review this alongside their own NNAP data to inform local service improvement.”
The data shows:
Parent consultation
- Parental consultation with a senior member of the neonatal team within 24 hours of the baby’s admission stayed relatively stable, with a marginal decrease of 0.3% overall to an average of 94.5%.
- Consultation within 24 hours is less likely to take place if the mother is Black (93.3%) compared to Asian (94.6%), White (95%) or Mixed and other ethnicity mothers (94.9%).
Parent inclusion at ward rounds
- Parent inclusion in ward rounds increased overall in 2025 to 38%, a 2% improvement since 2024.
- Despite this, inclusion in ward rounds remained significantly lower when the mother was Asian (32.1%), Black (36%), Mixed or other ethnic background (36.3%), compared to White mothers (40.4%).
Breastmilk feeding
- Breastmilk feeding at discharge, defined as the baby receiving any mothers’ own milk (MOM) or exclusively MOM, has improved by 2%. Variation of breastmilk feeding rates at discharge between networks has also improved since 2024.
- A lower proportion of babies received any MOM at 14 days of age when their mother was White (64%), compared to Asian (82.2%), Black (83.4%) or Mixed or other ethnicity (79.3%).
Medical follow ups
- Documented medical follow up for babies at two years of age increased overall by 2% from the previous year.
- There is significant variation in medical follow up between babies born to mothers of different ethnicities — being the lowest when the mother is of Mixed or other ethnicity (69.7%) compared to Asian (84%), Black (81.5%) and White mothers (80.5%).
- Some reduction in variation between units has also occurred.
Perinatal care optimisation
- The proportion of babies receiving all relevant measured optimal perinatal care interventions has increased by 2.9% since 2024.
- It should be noted that only 25.4% of babies received an optimal perinatal care journey in 2025, meaning 3 in 4 babies did not.
- There is evidence of unwarranted geographical variation in the data.
Born at a site with a NICU
- The number of babies born at less than 27 weeks’ gestation at a site with a NICU increased by 4.2% since 2024 to 83.4% overall.
- This positive change has been largely driven by improvements in the Wales and East Midlands networks, but there is still significant geographical variation.
- Babies born to White mothers are less likely to give birth at a site with a NICU, however it is noted that this could be a chance finding and so should be interpreted with caution.
Staffing levels
- The percentage of neonatal nurse shifts staffed according to standards increased by 1.4% since 2024 to 82.9% – this improvement is likely to reflect increases in funding for nurses.
- However NICUs (76.5%) continue to be less likely than SCUs (88.9%) and LNUs (83.5%) to be staffed fully.
