Linking surveillance and clinical data for evaluating trends in bloodstream infection rates in neonatal units in England

ObjectiveTo evaluate variation in trends in bloodstream infection (BSI) rates in neonatal units (NNUs) in England according to the data sources and linkage methods used.MethodsWe used deterministic and probabilistic methods to link clinical records from 112 NNUs in the National Neonatal Research Database (NNRD) to national laboratory infection surveillance data from Public Health England. We calculated the proportion of babies in NNRD (aged ResultsUsing deterministic and probabilistic linkage, 5,629 of 349,740 babies admitted to a NNU in NNRD linked with 6,660 BSI episodes accounting for 38% of 17,388 BSI records aged ConclusionLinkage that combines BSI records from national laboratory surveillance and clinical NNU data sources, and use of probabilistic methods, substantially improved ascertainment of BSI and estimates of BSI trends over time, compared with single data sources.