Publication, Part of NCARDRS Congenital Condition Statistics: Annual Data
NCARDRS Congenital Condition Official Statistics Report, 2023
Official statistics
Summary
This publication, the ninth annual congenital condition statistics report released by the National Congenital Condition and Rare Disease Registration Service (NCARDRS), part of the National Disease Registration Service (NDRS) in NHS England, contains information on congenital conditions detected in babies born in England between 1 January 2018 and 31 December 2023, with a focus on the birth year 2023.
This report is based on curated and quality assured congenital condition registration data as of 1 June 2026.
This year, the Congenital Condition Official Statistics will be published as three separate reports to facilitate the prompt release of key counts and rates. This report is the first instalment, describing counts and rates by condition and by different geographical aggregations. Further reports describing the timing of diagnosis and key public health indicators will be published in due course.
The counts and rates of congenital conditions are designated as Official Statistics. Counts and rates of congenital conditions for the birth year 2023 are presented for England, by the 9 former Government Office Regions (GOR) and by the 42 Integrated Care Boards (ICB), for major condition groups (level 1), condition subgroups (level 2) and individual conditions (level 3) (Data tables 1a to 1c).
The denominators used in this publication include the number of total births (live births and stillbirths) and the number of live births, as reported by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) birth registrations in England.
Highlights
New in this publication
Updated counts and prevalence estimates for all previously reported birth years with national registration coverage (2018 - 2022) have been provided by region and ICB, for major condition groups (level 1), condition subgroups (level 2) and individual conditions (level 3) (Data table 3a, to 3c) as described in Congenital condition classification and groups. These restated counts and prevalence estimates will be published in future annual reports because additional data continues to be registered after the initial publication. A more detailed analysis of the trends over time and the impact of accumulated data on reported prevalence estimates will be described in a future publication.
In addition, Data table 1 has been expanded to present the total birth prevalence and live birth prevalence by individual condition for the current birth year, nationally (Data table 1a), by region (Data table 1b) and by ICB (Data table 1c).
Minor improvements have been made to the composition of the cohort as detailed in the Technical Details. The most visible of these is the inclusion of babies where the pregnancy outcome is not known, but it has been established that the gestation was at least or exceeded 20 weeks, and a condition has been identified and verified.
UK Crown Dependencies have not been included in counts and rates since 2021 as these data are no longer collected by NCARDRS. These have been removed from the restated prevalence estimates for 2018 - 2022 (Data table 3a to 3c).
Upcoming statistics
Counts and rates by timing of diagnosis, age at delivery, deprivation quintile, and further information on infant and perinatal mortality will be available at a later date.
Key Facts
There were 14,087 babies born with a congenital condition in 2023.
10,271 (73 %) were born alive.
One baby was diagnosed with a congenital condition for every 40 total births (live births and stillbirths) in 2023 in England; one in 55 live births had a congenital condition.
Total birth prevalence was 249.1 per 10,000 births in 2023.
In 2023, the 4 most common major congenital condition groups were:
Congenital heart disease (CHD) (n = 3,955), Genomic (n = 3,861), Limb (n = 1,768) and Kidney and urinary (n = 1,601).
Counts and birth prevalence estimates for previous birth years have been updated nationally, by region and by ICB for the years 2018 to 2022.
26% (n = 3,514) more babies with a congenital condition have been added to the 2018 birth cohort since it was reported, increasing overall birth prevalence from 213.3 (209.7-217.0) to 269.3 (265.2-273.3) per 10,000 births.
Acknowledgments
This work uses data that has been provided by patients and collected by the NHS as part of their care and support. The data are collated, maintained and quality assured by the National Disease Registration Service, which is part of NHS England.
Resources
Last edited: 5 November 2026 9:31 am