Obstetric Anaesthetic Standard
Each year, more than 700,000 babies are born in hospitals in the UK, and around 60% of these involve input from anaesthetists. Anaesthetists working in maternity services contribute to the multidisciplinary team to plan and provide care particularly to those patients with health conditions and complex needs.
Anaesthetists also administer specialist methods of pain relief in labour such as epidurals, as well as providing anaesthesia for surgical procedures such as caesarean sections.
Despite anaesthetics being used in more than half of all UK hospital births, there is very little national data on the use of anaesthesia in maternity care. Where data is available, it is often inconsistently coded which makes meaningful analysis to identify patterns, trends and opportunities for improvement difficult.
On this page
About the project
We’ve been commissioned by the Obstetric Anaesthetists’ Association (OAA) to research and develop an information standard which will enable the introduction of a national dataset for anaesthesia in maternity settings.
Our work will build on the OAA’s National Obstetric Anaesthetic Database (NOAD), which was previously used to audit patterns of practice and complications of anaesthesia, and existing OAA research into key quality indicators identified as being most relevant to obstetric anaesthesia.
Aim and objectives
The project aims to identify the minimum dataset needed to improve care and quality outcomes for obstetric anaesthetic services and support evidence-based policy making.
We will also explore how the data could be captured, presented and published as part of a national data collection.
The objectives of the initial discovery phase are to:
- undertake research and evidence review to identify the core data elements
- draft an information standard for consultation
- identify questions to be addressed in consultation
- set out the plan, approach, costs, and recommendations for undertaking a full standard development
The project will also recommend the most appropriate mechanism for collection and presentation of the data. This may be by incorporating it into an existing standards and data set, for example the Digital Maternity Record Standard (DMRS) and the Maternity Services Data Set (MSDS).
Consultation
Our survey has now closed – thank you to everyone who participated. Your feedback will help develop a key minimum dataset for inclusion in national datasets, supporting policy-making, healthcare improvements, and better patient outcomes in obstetric anaesthetic services. For any questions or further information, please contact Andy Wright, Engagement Lead at PRSB: andy.wright@theprsb.org