Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Answer of 30 March 2021 to Question 164679 on Abortion: Drugs, with which partner organisations his Department is planning to examine the system of reporting abortion complications; how many of those partner organisations are abortion providers or providers that support abortion; and what steps his Department plans to take to ensure that that examination is objective.

Scoping of the Department’s project to review the system of recording abortion complications data is currently underway. Abortion complications data is collected via the HSA4 abortion notification form. However, it is recognised that the data is limited as not all complications will be known to the practitioner at the time the form is submitted.

To improve the accuracy of data collected, the Department will work closely with a range of statutory bodies, professional organisations and abortion providers to identify additional sources of information that could be used to compliment complications data collected via HSA4 abortion notification forms and improve the flow of data on abortion complications between different organisations, such as independent and National Health Service abortion providers and wider NHS health and care services.

We anticipate this work will be completed later this year.