Source · Select Committees · Health and Social Care Committee
Recommendation 17
17
Accepted
Accelerate development of the maternal morbidity indicator and provide a clear timetable.
Recommendation
We are concerned that progress on developing a maternal morbidity indicator has been unacceptably slow, despite a Government commitment to do so over two years ago. We recommend the Department work with the National Institute for Health and Care Research to accelerate development and provide a clear timetable in response to this report. (Recommendation, Paragraph 82) Funding
Government Response Summary
The government agrees that developing a severe maternal morbidity indicator is critical and commits to it regularly reporting by June 2026. It details ongoing work with researchers and the PRiSMM system to update the indicator and create a new data platform for monitoring.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
We agree that the development of a severe maternal morbidity indicator is critical to our work to tackle maternal inequalities - enabling us to better understand trends at pace, including at a local level, and what interventions are working, as well as being an important measure in its own right. We expect this indicator to regularly report by June 2026. Researchers in the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit at the University of Oxford and the National Institute for Health and Care Research’s Policy Research Unit in Maternal and Neonatal Health and Care have updated the existing English maternal morbidity outcome indicator to include a more comprehensive list of conditions and results have already been released demonstrating the variation in the indicator by ethnicity and deprivation. From June 2026, the new PRiSMM system will regularly report this indicator by region, ethnicity and area deprivation scores in a data dashboard. This report will be updated each time new national data is released, providing an up-to-date snapshot of maternal morbidity. In parallel, this research team will create a new data platform that will gather more detailed information from individual electronic patient records. This will enable trusts to monitor and respond to changes in rates of severe maternal morbidity.