Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many women were diagnosed with complications following a (a) surgical and (b) medical abortion in each of the last five years.
Data on how many complications resulting from medical abortions were reported in England and Wales in 2017 is not yet available. 2017 abortion data will be published on 7 June 2018.
The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists’ 2011 clinical guideline on the Care of Women Requesting Induced Abortion highlights that abortion using both medical and surgical methods is a safe procedure for which major complications and mortality are rare at all gestations. The guideline notes that medical abortion with mifepristone and misoprostol is associated with a longer duration of bleeding, more pain and gastrointestinal adverse effects, and a higher likelihood of being incomplete than vacuum aspiration under general anaesthetic up to 14 weeks of gestation. A copy of the guideline can be viewed online at the following link:
https://www.rcog.org.uk/globalassets/documents/guidelines/abortion-guideline_web_1.pdf
Information on the number of women diagnosed with complications following a surgical and medical abortion in each of the last five years for which data is published is set out in the following table.
Legal abortions - complications by procedure, residents of England and Wales, 2012-16
Year | Total all procedures | Surgical | Medical |
2012 | 278 | 91 | 187 |
2013 | 235 | 83 | 152 |
2014 | 330 | 101 | 229 |
2015 | 294 | 85 | 209 |
2016 | 294 | 88 | 206 |
Note:
Data on complications is collected on HSA4 forms which provide a notification of each abortion.
Complications which arise after the form has been completed will not be included in the official statistics.