MBRRACE-UK: Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries across the UK

MBRRACE-UK Perinatal Confidential Enquiry 2020: Stillbirths and Neonatal Deaths in Twin Pregnancies

MBRRACE-UK is pleased to announce the publication of the MBRRACE-UK Perinatal Confidential Enquiry: Stillbirths and Neonatal Deaths in Twin Pregnancies 2020. The full report and lay report can be downloaded from the reports page.

MBRRACE-UK: Saving Lives, Improving Mothers' Care 2020: Lessons to inform maternity care from the UK and Ireland Confidential Enquiries in Maternal Death and Morbidity 2016-18

MBRRACE-UK is pleased to announce the publication of the MBRRACE-UK Saving Lives, Improving Mothers' Care report for 2020. The full report and lay report can be downloaded from the reports page.

MBRRACE-UK Perinatal Mortality Surveillance Report UK Perinatal Deaths for Births from January to December 2018

MBRRACE-UK is pleased to announce the publication of the MBRRACE-UK- Perinatal Mortality Surveillance Report for Births in 2018. The full report, the tables and figures, the infographic and technical document along with the Excel version of the tables in the report can be downloaded on the reports page.

Reporting to MBRRACE-UK continues during the COVID-19 pandemic

These are very difficult times, and we appreciate that when services are stretched keeping up with MBRRACE-UK reporting may be challenging.

Furthermore, there has been some confusion regarding the continuation of reporting to MBRRACE-UK during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Reporting to MBRRACE-UK is continuing as it is essential to enable us to assess both the direct and indirect effects of COVID-19 on both maternal and perinatal mortality.

Perinatal deaths

All new notifications of perinatal deaths now include 2 additional questions in order to record a positive test for COVID-19 infection in either the mother or baby. Reporting of these deaths is time-critical.

The order of priorities for continuing to report perinatal deaths is therefore:

Ensuring that all deaths with a positive test for COVID-19 infection in the mother and/or baby are notified as soon as possible, and the surveillance form is completed as soon as possible thereafter;
Continuing to notify all other perinatal deaths.

In addition to the above, please continue with the following activities unless and until front-line clinical activities mean that there is no longer the capacity to do so:

Completion of the surveillance form for all perinatal deaths
Carrying out reviews using the Perinatal Mortality Review Tool

The Perinatal Team are unable to take telephone calls at present, but if but if have any queries please email mbrracele@npeu.ox.ac.uk with details of your query and your contact details and a member of the team will either call you back or deal with your query via email.

Maternal deaths

Notification of maternal deaths of women with a positive test for COVID-19 infection is a priority. Please ensure that you notify us of a COVID-19 related death by calling: 01865 289715. Please also ensure that the medical notes for these women are sent to us as a priority and that they are sent electronically to: orh-tr.mbrrace@nhs.net

Otherwise notification of all other maternal deaths should continue as normal. In order to notify a maternal death please call 01865 289715 and leave a voicemail with your contact details, or alternatively email your contact details to mbrrace-uk@npeu.ox.ac.uk and a member of the team will call you back as soon as possible.

The Maternal Team are continuing to request and collect medical records, but we understand that the current situation will inevitably slow things down. Where possible we ask that that medical records are sent electronically via nhs.net to orh-tr.mbrrace@nhs.net. If this is not possible, please contact the maternal team for instructions for sending via post.

Thank you for your continuing dedication and hard work.

The MBRRACE-UK Team

Signs of Life

UK clinical guidance

Determination of signs of life following spontaneous births before 24+0 weeks of gestation where, following discussion with parents, active survival-focused care is not appropriate

This guidance is to support health care professionals in the assessment and documentation of signs of life in extremely preterm births. It aims to increase the consistency of the registration of births and deaths and reduce the confusion and distress experienced by parents.

Guidance available at: https://timms.le.ac.uk/signs-of-life

November 2020

MBRRACE-UK: Saving Lives, Improving Mothers' Care

Rapid report: Learning from SARS-CoV-2-related and associated maternal deaths in the UK March-May 2020

MBRRACE-UK is pleased to announce the publication of the MBRRACE-UK: Saving Lives Improving Mothers' Care rapid report on SARS-CoV-2-related and associated maternal deaths 2020. This report covers the lessons learned to inform care from rapid reviews of the care of women who died with SARS-CoV-2 infection or from mental health-related causes or domestic violence between March and May 2020.

The full report can be downloaded on the report page.

THIS IS NOT THE MBRRACE-UK ONLINE REPORTING SYSTEM. IF YOU WISH TO REPORT A CASE PLEASE GO TO: www.mbrrace.ox.ac.uk

'MBRRACE-UK' is the collaboration appointed by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) to run the national Maternal, Newborn and Infant clinical Outcome Review Programme (MNI-CORP) which continues the national programme of work conducting surveillance and investigating the causes of maternal deaths, stillbirths and infant deaths.

The aim of the MNI-CORP MBRRACE-UK programme is to provide robust national information to support the delivery of safe, equitable, high quality, patient-centred maternal, newborn and infant health services.

MBRRACE-UK achieves this by:

Surveillance of all maternal deaths
Confidential enquiries into maternal deaths during and up to one year after the end of the pregnancy
Confidential enquiries into cases of serious maternal morbidity on a rolling basis
Surveillance of perinatal deaths including late fetal losses (22-23 weeks gestation), stillbirths and neonatal deaths
Confidential enquiries into stillbirths, infant deaths and cases of serious infant morbidity on a rolling basis

The scope MNI-CORP is a national programme which encompasses England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man

Duration of the programme: MBRRACE-UK were commissioned to run the programme from May 2012 to March 2017; following a further competitive re-commissioning round the programme has been extended to run until 30th September 2021.

Funding: The MNI-CORP programme is commissioned by HQIP on behalf of NHS England, NHS Wales, the Health and Social Care Division of the Scottish government, the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety, Northern Ireland (DHSSPS), the States of Jersey, Guernsey, and the Isle of Man.

Notifications of maternal deaths should be made by ringing the Oxford MBRRACE-UK office on 01865 289715.

Reporting of stillbirths, perinatal deaths and infant deaths is via the MBRRACE-UK online reporting system available here: www.mbrrace.ox.ac.uk. Guidelines for using the system can be downloaded here: MBRRACE online data entry guidebook (release April 2013 v101).

Units are asked to review their access to the internet to ensure that the web browser they are using meets the specifications required to enter data via the MBRRACE-UK system; older versions of software are not suitable as they do not meet NHS data security requirements. Please view the IT specification page to check this for your Unit.

Please also view the MBRRACE-UK IT deployment page which outlines more information about the deployment of the MBRRACE-UK data collection system and may be helpful for IT staff in Units.

Information about why we are collecting non-anonymised information and details about the approvals we have to collect this information is provided on the 'Why we need identifiers' page.

The topics selected for future confidential enquiries are available on the Topics page.

Please also see our Frequently Asked Questions page.

Assessors for the Confidential Enquiries into Maternal and Infant Deaths

With the exception of a small number of specific specialties we have recruited most assessors for the Confidential Enquiries into Maternal Death and the current perinatal confidential enquiry. Any future positions will be advertised here.

Contact details

Maternal Programme General Enquiries, Oxford MBRRACE-UK office
Email: mbrrace-uk@npeu.ox.ac.uk
Tel: 01865 289715
Perinatal Programme General Enquiries, Leicester MBRRACE-UK office
Email: mbrracele@npeu.ox.ac.uk
Tel: 0116 252 5425