Miscarriage

(asked on 17th December 2015) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many NHS patients have had miscarriages as a result of the amniocentesis test in the last three years.


Answered by
 Portrait
Ben Gummer
This question was answered on 8th January 2016

Data on the number of NHS patients who have had miscarriages as a result of the amniocentesis test is not held centrally.


Data on the number of NHS patients who had an amniocentesis test and then gave birth to a child with Down’s syndrome is not held centrally.


The following table is a count of births where the baby had a main or secondary diagnosis of Down's syndrome for the years 2012-13 to 2014-15. Note that this is not a count of patients who gave birth as one mother may have had multiple deliveries within the time period presented. Note that the data presented only identifies babies who have been diagnosed with Down's syndrome on the birth episode.


Count of birth episodes1 where there was a primary or secondary diagnosis2 of Down's syndrome3, 2012-13 to 2014-154,5

Year

Count of birth episodes

2012-13

539

2013-14

540

2014-15

517

Activity in English NHS Hospitals and English NHS commissioned activity in the independent sector

Source: Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), Health and Social Care Information Centre


Notes

1 Birth episodes

A birth episode is the hospital episode relating to the baby. One can expect there to be a higher number of birth episodes than delivery episodes because a mother can give birth to multiple babies within the same pregnancy. Births are a subset of finished consultant episodes; a period of admitted patient care under one consultant within one healthcare provider.

2 Number of episodes in which the patient had a primary or secondary diagnosis

The number of episodes where this diagnosis was recorded in any of the 20 (14 from 2002-03 to 2006-07 and 7 prior to 2002-03) primary and secondary diagnosis fields in a Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) record. Each episode is only counted once, even if the diagnosis is recorded in more than one diagnosis field of the record.

3ICD-10 codes for Down's syndrome

The following ICD-10 code classifies Down's syndrome:

Q90 - Down syndrome

4Assessing growth through time (Admitted patient care)

HES figures are available from 1989-90 onwards. Changes to the figures over time need to be interpreted in the context of improvements in data quality and coverage (particularly in earlier years), improvements in coverage of independent sector activity (particularly from 2006-07) and changes in NHS practice. For example, apparent reductions in activity may be due to a number of procedures which may now be undertaken in outpatient settings and so no longer include in admitted patient HES data. Conversely, apparent increases in activity may be due to improved recording of diagnosis or procedure information.

Note that HES include activity ending in the year in question and run from April to March, e.g. 2012-13 includes activity ending between 1st April 2012 and 31st March 2013.

5Delivery and birth episodes in 2013-14

Please be aware in 2013-14 there were a number of hospital providers where there were less birth episodes than delivery episodes. There are a number of possible reasons for this occurring in small numbers from genuine recording scenarios to other maternity data quality issues impacting. Further details regarding this issue can be found at:


http://www.hscic.gov.uk/catalogue/PUB16725/nhs-mate-eng-2013-14-ip-qual-rep.pdf



As part of its review of evidence for offering non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) for Down's syndrome and other trisomy conditions, the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC), which advises Ministers and the NHS in all four countries about all aspects of screening policy, commissioned a cost-consequence assessment. This assessment includes projected annual costs for a number of models of implementing NIPT and is available at:


http://legacy.screening.nhs.uk/policydb_download.php?doc=552


The UK NSC’s recommendation on NIPT and preferred models for implementations will be made public in the New Year.





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