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

Skip to section menu

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 release “Perinatal Mortality Surveillance Report – UK Perinatal Deaths for Births from January to December 2015”

The stillbirth rate in the UK has reduced by almost 8% over the period 2013 to 2015. The Government ambition is to halve the rates of stillbirth and neonatal death in England by 2030. These findings indicate that things are moving in the right direction.

The MBRRACE-UK report focuses on rates of stillbirth and neonatal death across the UK for babies born at 24 weeks of gestation or more. In 2015 the stillbirth rate was 3.87 per 1,000 total births, a fall from 4.20 in 2013. Nevertheless, despite this reduction UK stillbirth rates still remain high compared to many similar European countries and there remains significant variation across the UK that is not solely explained by some of the important factors that influence the rate of death such as poverty, mothers age, multiple birth and ethnicity.

Over the same period the neonatal death rate has remained fairly static with a fall between 2013 and 2015 from 1.84 to 1.74 deaths per 1,000 live births, indicating that more work is required to prevent these deaths in the future. Data for the Neonatal Networks shows that neonatal mortality rates vary between 1.15 and 3.21 deaths per 1,000 live births. Much of this variation is accounted for by differences in the proportion of babies dying from a major congenital anomaly.

Broadly similar NHS Trusts and Health Boards have been grouped together by their type of care or the number of mothers they provide maternity care for to provide an appropriate comparison of their mortality rates. MBRRACE-UK recommend that those Trusts and Health Boards identified with high rates of stillbirth or neonatal death rates (highlighted by a traffic light system) should review the quality of the care they provide. Work commissioned by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Programme is underway to develop a standardised Perinatal Mortality Review Tool (PMRT) to support and improve the quality of local reviews of all stillbirths and neonatal deaths carried out by Trusts and Health Boards in the future. The PMRT is in development as an integral part of the MBRRACE-UK programme of work.

Follow us on Twitter: @TIMMSleicester, @mbrrace

To download the report, please go to the reports page.

'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:

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

Last Updated:
Tuesday, 18 July 2017 14:19 (v 67)