Northampton General Hospital opens bedrooms for babies' families

Chloe, who spent five weeks in Gosset ward, helped cut the ribbon for the new bedrooms

Two new bedrooms have been opened at a hospital for families of sick and premature babies.

A community fundraising appeal collected £100,000 for the project at Northampton General Hospital (NGH).

Rob, whose daughter Chloe was born prematurely and who helped cut the ribbon for the rooms, described them as "critically important".

The hospital supports more than 400 families with sick and premature babies every year.

Chloe cut the ribbon - helped by her father - to officially open the new bedrooms

Rob knows what it is like for families when the joy of a new birth is overshadowed by the baby being unwell.

He and wife Kate lost their first child Theo after just four days in 2015, after Kate was diagnosed with preeclampsia.

The couple went on to have Elsie, who is now seven, and Chloe, who was born prematurely at 32 weeks and who spent five weeks on NGH's neonatal Gosset Ward.

Rob said: "We live close to the hospital but, when Chloe was in Gosset, I remember talking to parents who were taking the train to Northampton every day from Nottingham to see their baby.

"Having this accommodation will take out all the stress of travel, parking, and that feeling of just not being close at hand at a difficult time. I think it is critically important."

His family collected more than £19,000 for Gosset Ward themselves as well as raising awareness of preeclampsia.

In total, the Northamptonshire Health Charity raised £100,000 for the project over the course of two years, with another £85,000 coming from funds the ward already had.

Dr Nick Barnes from NGH said the bedrooms have made a big difference to the support that can be offered to families

Dr Nick Barnes, a consultant paediatrician at NGH, part of the Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust, said: "We now have two twin bedrooms with en suite facilities, called the Bluebell and Poppy Suite, to enable parents to stay overnight and be close to their baby at what is an intensely stressful and worrying time for them.

"Having the new accommodation has already started to make a big difference to the support we can offer at a critical time in parents' lives, enabling them to be where they want to be, close to their sick baby. "