Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment have they made of how the single patient record could improve the recording of miscarriage across NHS services, and what measures are being taken to reduce the risk of ‘double counting’ the same miscarriage recorded by different services.

It has historically been difficult to gather accurate and comprehensive data on miscarriages. While data is collected on those miscarriages that occur during hospital stays, the majority occur outside of healthcare settings, and it is the choice of the woman affected whether she discloses that information to healthcare professionals.

The planned introduction of the new Single Patient Record (SPR) is an important step towards one, comprehensive health record for every patient, and this will start with maternity. The SPR will initially capture some, though not all, miscarriage data, and we will continue to consider this as implementation progresses.