Please note – this is no longer an active Health Innovation Manchester project

Prevention of Cerebral Palsy in PreTerm Labour (PReCePT) was a national AHSN Network adoption and spread programme during 2018-2020. All AHSNs, including Health Innovation Manchester, delivered this programme in their region between April 2018- March 2020.

The PReCePT Programme is a quality improvement project designed to reduce the incidence of cerebral palsy through the administration of magnesium sulphate to eligble preterm mothers across England.

This evidence-based, cost-effective project was designed to help reduce cerebral palsy in babies through the increased antenatal administration of magnesium sulphate (MgSO4) to mothers during preterm labour, costing from £1 per individual dose.

Between 4,000 and 5,000 babies are born before 30 weeks’ gestation in England per year and stand to benefit from full national roll-out of the PReCePT programme. Successful scaling up of PReCePT is likely to prevent several hundred cases of cerebral palsy per year, based on highest grade evidence.

PReCePT was developed by the West of England AHSN in collaboration with University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust, and involved both patients and staff.

The intervention was adopted by all five maternity units in the West of England. Projection modelling indicates that since the launch of the project in August 2014, phase one of PReCePT has prevented seven cases of cerebral palsy across the region.

Funded by NHS England, PReCePT is also one of the seven local AHSN programmes to have been selected for adoption and spread across the national AHSN Network during 2018-2020.

This work brought together the 15 AHSNs and the aligned drivers of the Maternal and Neonatal Health Safety Collaborative (MNHSC) and the national Patient Safety Collaboratives (PSCs) to support the aim of achieving 85% uptake of administration of magnesium sulphate to preterm babies in all maternity units in England, with a stretch target of 95% by 2020.