The charity Bliss has warned that more that half of specialist neonatal care units are not meeting minimum standards and has called for 1,150 more nurses.
In response, Health Minister Anne Milton said:
“We want to make sure that sick and premature babies get consistently high quality neonatal care. NHS hospitals in England must ensure that they have the right number of qualified staff to provide this.
“The death of any child is a tragedy and although it is encouraging that neonatal mortality rates continue to fall there is still more to do.
“Our modernisation plans will cut the costs of administration by one-third over this Parliament, and every penny will be reinvested into frontline services to improve quality for patients.”