Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to his Department's consultation entitled Home use of both pills for early medical abortion up to 10 weeks gestation and the statement in that consultation that for terminations in 2019 where the second early medical abortion pill was administered at home, complications may be less likely to be recorded on the abortion notification form, whether (a) those complications are reported by other means and (b) his Department has plans to review the process for reporting abortion complications to ensure that data is collected for complications not reported on the abortion notification form.

There is currently no process in place for additional complications to be recorded on HSA4 forms after submission of the form. The Department is undertaking a project to review the system of recording abortion complications data and we anticipate this work will be completed later this year. The review will cover all data on complications arising from abortion including timing of reporting.