Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how long a medical practitioner is required to wait before submitting an HSA4 form after dispensing medical abortion pills by post or through a clinic for patients to take at home; how complications as a result of taking those pills can be reported after an HSA4 form has already been submitted; and whether in the event that such complications are later reported there is a process in place to ensure that that HSA4 form is amended to record those complications.

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.