Publication, Part of Maternity Services Monthly Statistics

Maternity Services Monthly Statistics December 2020, experimental statistics

Official statistics

Publication Date:: 25 Mar 2021
Geographic Coverage:: England
Geographical Granularity:: Country, Regions, Hospital Trusts, Provider, NHS Trusts, Integrated Care Boards, Sub-Integrated Care Boards, Local Authorities, Hospital and Community Health Services, Hospital Sites
Date Range:: 01 Dec 2020 to 31 Dec 2020

Policy-specific analysis

Maternity Transformation Programme

In 2016, the Maternity Transformation Programme, led by NHS England, published 'Better Births' which set out the following vision:

'...for maternity services in England to become safer, more personalised, kind, professional and more family friendly; where every woman has access to information to enable her to make decisions about her care; and where she and her baby can access support that is centred on their individual needs and circumstances.'

The programme covers a number of specific policy areas for review, some of which are detailed below on this page.

Further information about the Maternity Transformation Programme is available.

Continuity of Carer

What is Continuity of Carer?

The overarching aim is to ensure safer care for women based on a relationship of mutual trust and respect between women and their midwives.

The provision of care by a known midwife throughout the pregnancy, labour, birth and postnatal period can be associated with improved health outcomes for the mother and baby and also greater satisfaction levels.

Where a Continuity of Carer pathway has been agreed, this should be recorded and submitted via the MSDS.

119 trusts have reported that Continuity of Carer pathways are in place for a total of 25,870 women.

This is 24 more trusts than in the previous month.

Statistics on Continuity of Carer have been published to provide data submitters and users with insight into the quality and completeness of their data, with a view to improving this ahead of formal measurement in March 2021 and beyond. Due to variations in data quality and completeness, these statistics may not accurately reflect the true number of women placed on a Continuity of Carer pathway at this early stage of development.

Reporting

Data by organisation on the number of women placed on a Continuity of Carer pathway by 29 weeks gestation can be found in the measures file available for download. As of the December 2020 publication, filtered data looking at placement of Black and Asian women, and women from the most deprived decile of areas, has been published alongside the main metric.

A numerator and denominator will be shown for all providers, but only providers that score 5% or more will be included in the national-level rate, as a basic test for data quality. Data Quality assessment criteria will be developed further in coming months

Why do the metric breakdowns focus specifically on the placement of black and asian women and those from the most deprived decile areas?

Part of the Continuity of Carer work involves a focus on specific targeted groups where there are known health inequalities, specifically the increased risk of perinatal mortality for babies of mothers from Black and Asian ethnic backgrounds and babies born to mothers living in the most deprived areas. This focus is in line with the Long Term Plan commitment that 75% of women from these groups should receive Continuity of Carer by 2024.

Further information about this targeted care is available.

Administrative Sources

Maternity Services Data Set (MSDS): this is a patient-level data set that captures information about activity carried out by Maternity Services relating to a mother and baby(s), from the point of the first booking appointment until mother and baby(s) are discharged from maternity services. This is a secondary uses data set, which re-uses clinical and operational data for purposes other than direct patient care.

Last edited: 4 June 2021 1:16 pm