This statistical release makes available the most recent monthly data on NHS-funded maternity services in England, using data submitted to the Maternity Services Data Set (MSDS).
This is the latest report from the newest version of the data set, MSDS.v.2, which has been in place since April 2019. The new data set was a significant change which added support for key policy initiatives such as continuity of carer, as well as increased flexibility through the introduction of new clinical coding. This was a major change, so data quality and coverage has initially reduced from the levels seen in previous publications.
The data derived from SNOMED codes is being used in some measures such as those for smoking at booking and birth weight, and others 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 measure 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, small improvements have been made to the logic for CQIM data quality measure CQIMDQ20 and the CQIMTears rate, to ensure only relevant care activity records are included in the final data. Previously these measures were occasionally including small overcounts of the number of women with a 3rd or 4th degree tear. More detail can be found in the accompanying Metadata file.
This month, a measure counting the percentage of babies fully or partially breastfed between 6 and 8 weeks old, is included in this publication for the first time. This measure uses both the Maternity Services Dataset (MSDS) and Community Services Dataset (CSDS). The breastfeeding data can be found in the Measures file available for download, and information on the construction of this new measure can be found in the accompanying Metadata file. Due to variations in data quality and completeness these statistics may not accurately reflect the true number of babies breastfeeding between 6 and 8 weeks old, at this early stage of measure development.
The official statistics for breastfeeding prevalence at 6 to 8 weeks after birth are produced quarterly and annually by the Office of Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/child-and-maternal-health-statistics#breastfeeding-statistics. The data published today by NHS Digital is the first experimental use of record level data from the MSDS and CSDS to begin to produce a comparable and more powerful statistic to that currently published by OHID. More detail about the OHID and NHS Digital measurements of breastfeeding can be found in the ‘Coherence and Comparability’ section of this publication’s Data Quality Statement.
To help Trusts understand to what extent they meet the Clinical Negligence Scheme for Trusts (CNST) Data Quality Criteria for Safety Action 2, we have begun publishing two new data files each month which contain information for data providers showing their performance against all MSDS-derived Safety Action 2 criteria. These are available for download and can be found alongside the existing publication documents below.
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.
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.