Maternity Services Data Set (MSDS) legal basis and supporting documents

The Maternity Services Data Set (MSDS) 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.

The legal basis for MSDS

The Maternity Services Data Set v2.0 Information Standard is the specification of a patient-level data extraction (output) standard.

MSDS v2.0 DCB1513 Amd 10/2018 was accepted as an information standard by the Data Coordination Board (DCB) and an Information Standards Notice ISN) was published on 14 September 2018.

The ISN required that maternity information systems be fully conformant with the standard from 1 April 2019. The MSDS v2.0 mandated local data collection from 1 April 2019 and national submissions from May 2019.

The associated ISN and standard documents can be found by reading the MSDS v2.0 DCB1513 publication.

NHS Digital has been directed by NHS England under section 254 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012; to establish and operate a system for the collection and analysis of the MSDS.

When we receive such a direction to collect information, we issue a Data Provision Notice to the appropriate providers of the required data.

You can read the previous archived MSDS v1.5 ISN and corrigendum through the archived Information Standards Board library.

Last edited: 27 April 2023 3:09 pm