Concern over maternity care differences across UK

Maternity units have been urged to investigate after figures revealed differences in care for mothers and babies across Britain.

Findings of the National Maternity and Perinatal Audit (NMPA), the largest of its kind in the world, show the vast majority of women in Scotland, England and Wales have a safe birth.

But the number of babies requiring additional support and mothers experiencing adverse outcomes such as bleeding and severe tears differ across services.

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) said “unwarranted or unexplained” differences should be investigated. The data, which covered 696,738 births between April 2015 and March 2016, showed 3.5 per cent of women sustained third or fourth degree perineal tears during vaginal births. But this figure ranged from 0.6 per cent to 6.5 per cent across maternity services.

While hospitals reported 1.2 per cent of babies required additional support in the minutes after they were born, some units recorded figures as low as 0.3 per cent and others as high as 3.5 per cent.

Professor Lesley Regan, president of the RCOG, said: “We urge all maternity units to examine their own results and those of their neighbours both to identify role models.”