Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the average cost to the NHS of caring for a multiple pregnancy from conception through to the discharge home of mother and babies; and what the average tariff received by a trust for care in a multiple pregnancy was in the last 12 months.

For payment purposes, there are three separate pathway currencies covering different stages of maternity care: antenatal, delivery and postnatal. A lead provider receives a pathway price to cover the costs for the bundles of care they deliver at each of these stages. The price level is determined by patient complexity.

If a woman has one or more of the intensive resource characteristics, such as expecting twins, she is allocated to the intensive pathway for the non-delivery phases, irrespective of any other factors. The income received by the provider is the relevant tariff price multiplied by the organisation’s Market Forces Factor payment value.

Further information on the maternity pathway payment system can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/300549/Annex_4A_Additional_info_on_currencies_with_national_prices.pdf