Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to increase the level of screeing for infectious diseases in pregnant women in (a) West Midlands and (b) Coventry.

Screening is offered and recommended to all pregnant women in England as part of the United Kingdom National Screening Committee’s National Health Service Infectious Disease in Pregnancy Screening (IDPS) Programme. The aim of antenatal screening is not to promote uptake but to ensure that eligible women are able to make an informed choice as to whether to participate in screening or not.

Coverage is measured in the IDPS programme and reports a steady increase in the number of eligible women taking up the offer to be screened. This has risen from 96% in 2010 to 99% in 2016 in England. Further information is available at:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/583576/hpr0217_naism.pdf

Midwives and healthcare professionals offer screening to all pregnant women as part of their antenatal care package. The first offer to screen is at the start of the pregnancy and then a second reoffer at around 20 weeks. This is following a recommendation from a HIV expert review panel in response to findings from the Perinatal HIV Audit conducted by the National Study of HIV in Pregnancy and Childhood.

Published data for coverage on screening for IDPS can be viewed at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/682471/Screening_KPI_SummaryFactsheets_Feb2018_Issue2_V1.1.pdf