Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether medical practitioners are required to wait until 14 days have elapsed before submitting the HSA4 form following an electronic consultation to dispense home medical abortion pills or whether that form can be submitted at any point within the 14-day period of those pills having been dispensed.

In accordance with the Abortion Act and the Abortion Regulations 1991, all abortions performed in England must be notified to the Chief Medical Officer within 14 days of the procedure. There is no requirement for the practitioner to wait until day 14 to notify the abortion.

Any complication known to the practitioner terminating the pregnancy, at the time the notification is submitted, should be recorded on the Abortion Notification (HSA4) form. All serious incidents should be reported by the provider to their commissioner, the Care Quality Commission and other relevant organisations in line with the serious incident framework published by NHS England and NHS Improvement which is available at the following link:

https://improvement.nhs.uk/resources/serious-incident-framework/

We acknowledge that there are limitations with the data provided on HSA4 forms as complications that occur after treatment may not be known to the registered medical practitioner and may not be reported. We are planning to examine, with partner organisations, how well these systems are working in relation to recording complications arising from abortions and whether improvement is required.