National Gestational Diabetes Mellitus Audit

Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is the most common medical condition to affect pregnant women. If it is untreated during pregnancy it can lead to poor maternal and neonatal outcomes. However, effective treatment substantially reduces these risks and should lead to successful pregnancy outcomes. Management of GDM is clearly outlined in NICE Guidance NG3. 

Women who have GDM are at high risk of developing diabetes and cardiovascular disease after pregnancy. They need long term follow up to assess and manage these risks, including referral for support to reduce the development of diabetes, for example Diabetes Prevention Programme. NICE NG3 and NICE Quality Standards for Diabetes in Pregnancy (QS109) emphasise how important it is that women are being adequately supported postnatally to detect and prevent the development of diabetes, but it is not known whether this is happening in practice. 

Clinical teams report increasing numbers of women developing GDM, with a disproportionate impact on women living in deprived communities and some ethnic groups. Despite this, there has historically been limited national data available to understand the scale of GDM, assess outcomes for mothers and babies, or determine whether care is being delivered in line with NICE recommendations.

The National GDM Audit has been developed using routinely collected primary care NHS data to improve understanding of GDM care and outcomes while minimising the burden on healthcare services.

The GDM data is extracted annually from general practices via the General Practice Extraction Service (GPES) as part of the routine National Diabetes Audit programme of primary care data collections allowing the use of data to improve understanding of outcomes for women with GDM whilst minimising the burden on healthcare services.

Find out more information about how NHS England collects information from primary care practices.

Question 1 - How many women are diagnosed with GDM across the NHS and are healthcare inequalities being addressed?

Question 2 - Are women with GDM getting good maternal and neonatal outcomes across NHS services?

Question 3 - Are women with GDM adequately supported postnatally to detect and prevent development of diabetes?

The GDM traffic light tool is a simple 'red, amber, and green' system that helps healthcare professionals and the public check whether follow-up care has been given after pregnancy. This follow-up care helps to reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes and ensures people receive the support they need.

View the tool and find out more.

You can contact the GDM audit team at [email protected].