The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) published its updated guideline on the prevention of early onset neonatal group B streptococcal (GBS) disease in July 2012. The updated guideline took into account new evidence on the prevention of early-onset neonatal GBS disease. It is important that services undertake local clinical, audits to ensure the effective use of intrapartum antibiotic prophylaxis recommended by the guideline.

In 2012 the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence published two clinical audit tools which include clinical audit standards, a data collection form and an action plan template for use by services that care for women in labour or for babies at risk of, or being treated for, early on-set neonatal infection.

The Department is working together with the national health service, RCOG, the Royal College of Midwives, the National Institute for Health Research Heath Technology Assessment and the pharmaceutical industry on a number of areas:

the topic of a “point of care” test so that high-risk women, as identified in the RCOG revised Green-Top guideline on the prevention of early-onset neonatal GBS disease, can be tested at the start of labour is currently in the Health Technology Assessment prioritisation process and will be worked up for discussion in terms of relative importance, feasibility and noting any other existing and on going research;

development of an implementation tool for use locally to audit current practice and improve implementation of the revised RCOG guideline on the prevention of early-onset neonatal GBS disease;

including GBS as a topic within education and continuing professional development programmes for midwives and other clinicians; and

monitoring developments on vaccines against GBS infection.