We are pleased to tell you about our third NHS antenatal screening standards data report.
About the report
The report has now been published as official statistics. It includes data collected from 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2020 on 25 screening standards covering the 3 NHS antenatal screening programmes.
As part of these screening programmes, approximately 700,000 pregnant women are offered screening for 17 different conditions each year in England.
The report shows that:
- 99% of screening tests for Down’s syndrome, Edwards’ syndrome and Patau’s syndrome were available within 3 days of receipt by the screening laboratory
- over 2,000 babies born to mothers who were hepatitis B positive had their first vaccination by 24 hours of birth
- 98% of antenatal sickle cell and thalassaemia screening samples were accompanied by a completed family origin questionnaire
Highlights of the report
One of the areas we focused on last year was achieving complete coverage submissions. This focus has led to improvements. Overall, of those submitting data:
- all providers were above the acceptable threshold for all of the coverage standards
- the number of providers meeting the achievable thresholds increased compared to last year (2018 to 2019) with the best improvements in the Midlands and East and the North
- all regions and England met the achievable threshold for all coverage standard
Completeness of data for FASP-S01 across England increased from 70.5% in 2018 to 2019 to 88.8% in 2019 to 2020 with improvements seen in all regions.
While performance for FASP-S02 over the last 2 years has remained stable at 99.1%, data completeness has improved from 89.0% in 2018 to 2019 to 93.7% in 2019 to 2020. With more providers submitting data, this shows that nationally the number of women eligible for the scan and those receiving the scan has increased by nearly 18,000.
All regions met the achievable threshold for IDPS-S01, IDPS-S02, IDPS-S03 and SCT-S01.
See progress against last year’s recommendations in the antenatal screening standards data report 2019 to 2020.
Recommendations
We make 21 recommendations focusing on 3 areas for improvement. These areas are:
- reducing the number of non-submitting providers
- reducing the number of providers where submissions were excluded due to data quality issues
- increasing the number of providers meeting the acceptable thresholds
There are several providers not meeting the acceptable thresholds for some indicators and they will need supporting to meet this minimum level. This was a theme last year and remains a priority this year.
Thank you
The report is a testament to the hard work of everyone involved in the screening programmes at both local and regional levels. We would like to thank all those involved in collecting and collating the data, producing the report, and most of all those from the NHS who deliver the screening services.
We would also like to thank our colleagues in PHE Screening who have helped to produce this report.
PHE Screening blog
The PHE Screening blog provides up to date news from all NHS screening programmes. You can register to receive updates direct to your inbox, so there’s no need to keep checking for new blogs. If you have any questions about this blog article, or about population screening in England, please contact the PHE screening helpdesk.