Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the effectiveness of instituting the regular central collection of data in respect of early medical abortions at home with a view to improving policy decisions; and if he will make a statement.

In accordance with the Abortion Act 1967 and the Abortion Regulations 1991, all abortions performed in England, including early medical abortions where both pills are taken at home, must be notified to the Chief Medical Officer within 14 days of the procedure. 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.

The Department is undertaking a project to review the system of recording abortion complications data and we anticipate this work will be completed shortly. The review will cover all data on complications arising from abortion including home use of early medical abortion pills. To improve the accuracy of the data collected, the Department is working with a range of statutory bodies, professional organisations and abortion providers to identify additional sources of information that could be used to complement complications data collected via HSA4 abortion notification forms and improve the flow of data on abortion complications between different organisations, such as independent and National Health Service abortion providers and wider NHS health and care services.