Summary
Maternity Services Monthly Statistics April 2021, experimental statistics
This is a report on NHS-funded maternity services in England for April 2021, using data submitted to the Maternity Services Data Set (MSDS).
This is the latest report from the new version of the data set, MSDSv2. The new data set is a significant change which adds support for key policy initiatives such as personalised care plans and continuity of carer, as well as increased flexibility through the introduction of new clinical coding. This is a major change, so data quality and coverage has reduced from the levels seen in previous publications.
The data derived from SNOMED codes is still being developed. We have included data on smoking at booking and birth weight and others such as BMI and alcohol consumption will follow in later publications. SNOMED data is also included in some of the published Clinical Quality Improvement Metrics (CQIMs) where rules have been applied to ensure rates are calculated only where data quality is high enough. System suppliers are at different stages of developing their new solution and delivering that to trusts. In some cases this has limited the aspects of data that could be submitted to NHS Digital.
This month, data have been included for the first time on the number of women with Personalised Care Plans. This data can be found, by organisation, in the measures file available for download and includes the number of women with an antenatal Personalised Care Plan by 17 weeks gestation, the number with a birth Personalised Care Plan by 35 weeks gestation, and the number with a postpartum Personalised Care Plan by 37 weeks gestation. The file also includes the number of women who had all three plans in place by these gestational dates, including filtered data looking breakdowns by ethnicity and index of multiple deprivation.
Due to variations in data quality and completeness, these statistics may not accurately reflect the true number of women with Personalised Care Plans at this early stage of development. Data will be shown for all providers, but only providers with a rate of 5% or more will be included in the figures for the higher-level geographies, including at the national level, as a basic test of data quality. Data Quality assessment criteria will be developed further in the coming months.
These statistics are classified as experimental and should be used with caution. Experimental statistics are new official statistics undergoing evaluation. More information about experimental statistics can be found on the UK Statistics Authority website.
124 successful submissions
For April 2021 data, 124 providers successfully submitted data with 123 submitting data on births.
This is all expected from NHS trusts
58,225 bookings in April 2021
58,225 women with an antenatal booking appointment were reported in the period, of which 62% were within the first 10 weeks of pregnancy.
Of the trusts that submitted booking data, there were 35,810 bookings in which the babies' gestational age was in the 0-70 days range.
We received data relating to 43,255 deliveries of 43,840 babies. External data sources suggest there are around 53,000 births each month.
NHS Maternity Statistics, England 2018-2019 (NHS Digital)
Births in England and Wales: 2019 (Office for National Statistics)
54% of deliveries were spontaneous
54% of deliveries were spontaneous vaginal births, 10% had instrumental assistance, 14% were elective caesarean sections and 17% were emergency caesarean sections.
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: 28 July 2021 11:08 am
