The NHS newborn and infant physical examination (NIPE) newborn screening standards and pathways are changing from April 2021, following an extensive consultation process.
We sent detailed information to screening providers in May and October last year, and published a blog post in January explaining the changes in more detail.
We have now published the standards which will be valid for data collected from 1 April 2021.
Please continue to use the standards for data collected from 1 April 2018 for any data collected up to and including 31 March 2021.
Online question and answer sessions
As there are a number of changes, particularly for the NIPE hip screening pathways, the NIPE national team put on 4 lunchtime learning sessions for all those involved in the NIPE screening pathway.
The sessions ran throughout January and February and were well attended, with 282 attendees over the 4 dates. They were informal but informative, and the team were able answer questions and provide information on the new NIPE pathways and national standards.
Technology worked well, enabling the large number of attendees and interaction between the participants. This is an example of how the new ways of online working brought about by the pandemic can benefit the delivery of programme messages.
The session topics included:
- an outline of the April 2021 standards and pathways
- an overview of the new ‘too young and too ill for NIPE screening’ mitigation criteria
- an overview of the key SMaRT4NIPE (S4N) IT system changes in the April 2021 update
- changes to the quarterly standards and key data reports
- what providers need to do to implement the new standards and specific local actions
- a run through of frequently asked questions and answers
Positive feedback
We received positive feedback after the sessions, and we hope all participants had the opportunity to raise any questions and all answers were covered.
Feedback included:
Thank you for the excellent presentation.
Thank you for these sessions. Looking forward to obtaining the presentation to share especially with our orthopaedic teams; radiology and surgeons/specialists.
Thank you for clearing the doubts and the nice presentation.
Next steps
We have sent the slides to all NIPE leads to disseminate and share with all those involved with the NIPE pathways. The slides have also been sent to the screening quality assurance service (SQAS) teams to share with the screening and immunisation teams (SIT).
The questions asked at each session were added to a comprehensive document, which will be shared with all trusts via their NIPE lead shortly. It will also be shared with SIT and SQAS teams. If you do not receive a copy you can request one via the PHE Screening helpdesk.
No further sessions are planned, but we will consider another one if enough requests are received. Request can be made via the PHE Screening Helpdesk.
We will be providing online sessions for NIPE leads and S4N admin users which will showcase and explain the changes to S4N to support the new standards. More details will follow, but we expect these sessions will take place in late March and April.
If you have any queries about the new NIPE standards please contact the NIPE programme team via the PHE Screening helpdesk.
PHE Screening blog
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