NMPA Results
Three different types of results are presented on this page:
- Annual Clinical Audit Reporting Results: Results on maternity care practices and outcomes in Great Britain, taken from specialised maternity and administrative databases. Publication of the NMPA clinical report is unfortunately overdue owing to significant delays in receiving English maternity services data. The NMPA have now received these data, and the team are hard at work producing the next report, which will cover births during 2023. The report is scheduled for publication in June 2025.
- Organisational Survey Report Results: Results on the way care is organised in maternity services across Great Britain, based on questionnaires sent to hospitals in 2017 and 2019.
- Rapid Quarterly Reporting Results: The NMPA is no longer commissioned to produce Rapid Quarterly Reporting Results; instead we are focusing on producing high quality annual comparative outcomes, which allow for benchmarking against other services and national guidelines, alongside snapshot audits focused on specific topics.
Annual Clinical Audit Reports
What is it?
Our Annual Clinical Audit reports report on care practices and outcomes for women and families using maternity services in Great Britain. Information from specialised maternity databases in England, and administrative databases in Wales and Scotland, are compared between NHS hospitals. Changes in data quality over time are also assessed.
Example questions
Example questions these results can answer:
“How many hospitals have higher or lower rates of 3rd or 4th degree tears than expected, taking into account their patient case mix?”
“How many mothers in my local hospital had an episiotomy?”
Data are presented by financial year. Reports are available for all births between 1st April 2015 and 31st March 2016; between 1st April 2016 and 31st March 2017; and between 1st April 2017 and 31st March 2018.
Publication of the next NMPA clinical report is unfortunately overdue owing to significant delays in receiving English maternity services data. We have now received these data, and the team are hard at work producing the next report, which will cover births during 2023. The report is scheduled for publication in June 2025.
How is it shown?
Data are available at different levels: NHS hospital site or Trust/Health Board, local maternity system, region, and country. You can view results for an individual hospital on the NMPA website, or download one of our annual Clinical Reports which contain information ranging from hospital- to national-level.
Organisational Survey Reports
What is it?
The organisational survey results give a snapshot of the way care is organised in NHS maternity services in all settings across England, Scotland and Wales.
Example questions
Example questions these results can answer:
“Does my local NHS Trust have a midwife led unit?”
“Can my birth partner stay overnight at the hospital I’m thinking of giving birth in?”
What data are available?
Data are available from January 2017 and January 2019. These two surveys reflect the changes which are being implemented as a result of the maternity and neonatal services reviews and other initiatives.
How is it shown?
Data are shown on a number of topics covering the type of birth settings and facilities available, specialist care services and neonatal unit types and size.
Data are shown at a number of different levels – hospital, trust/board, neonatal network, local maternity system, and country.
Rapid Quarterly Reporting
What is it?
The NMPA are no longer commissioned to produce Rapid Quarterly Reporting.
The aim was to provide timely information on maternity care practices and the outcomes of women and families using NHS maternity services in England. It used a national administrative database to report results for each NHS hospital and nationally. The data was more timely but less detailed than the data used for our Clinical Audit results for England.
Example questions
Example questions these results can answer:
“Has the percentage of deliveries resulting in a 3rd or 4th degree tear changed in the last year in England?”
“What percentage of births in my local NHS hospital were preterm in the most recent 12 months?”
What data are available?
The NMPA is no longer commissioned to produce Rapid Quarterly Reporting Results.
The most recent data available is from 1st November 2019 to 31st October 2021.
How is it shown?
Data are shown at national and NHS hospital (Trust) level. There is one table which shows national results for the most recent 12 months, and the 12 months prior to that for comparison. Similar tables are also presented for each NHS hospital, with accompanying graphics showing whether the hospital’s results are higher or lower than expected.