About | PRiSMM

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Summary

In the UK today, one in every 10,000 women dies during pregnancy or in the six weeks after giving birth. However, for every woman who dies, it is thought that more than 100 experience a serious health complication ('severe maternal morbidity') which can result in lifelong health problems. Sadly, women who are Black, Asian or mixed race, and women who live in poorer areas are more likely to die or have one or more of these severe complications.

The government have identified reducing maternal mortality and severe morbidity as a key priority and in January 2026, NHS England published a 'Maternal Care Bundle' (MCB), to improve care in five key clinical areas. With the aim of reducing variation in clinical practice and inequalities in maternity care, these five elements are: -

venous thromboembolism
prehospital and acute care
epilepsy
maternal mental health
obstetric haemorrhage

The MCB is a complex intervention to prevent and treat the underlying causes of severe maternal morbidity and mortality. See more detail from NHS England about the MCB.

From April 2026-March 2027, all NHS Trusts in England must demonstrate that they are working towards implementation and from April 2027 all Trusts must demonstrate full implementation of the required changes to care.

Within the PRiSMM programme we want to examine certain aspects of the MCB to understand what is working well for women, staff and the health care system. We also want to understand how women feel about experiencing aspects of care in the bundle. It is important to find out about any challenges, and if there are any unexpected or knock-on consequences. This will help us to advise those involved in the development of the bundles such that they can make the necessary changes that will improve outcomes for women and babies the most.

Currently the systems available to collect and record data about the severe complications seen during and post pregnancy are not as good as they need to be, making it difficult to monitor severe maternal morbidity and provide the evidence needed to bring about change in policy and practice. PRiSMM will therefore use data already captured in patient care records to build a new data platform to bring together the data needed to understand national trends in pregnancy complications, improve the national monitoring of maternal morbidity and demonstrate where inequity exists across population groups and locations.

This powerful new data platform will also allow us to understand how the new care bundle intervention is working and to calculate the financial costs associated with the changes in clinical practice.

Aim of this research

The overarching aim of the PRiSMM programme is to improve outcomes for women and babies receiving NHS maternity care through the optimisation of the MCB to prevent and treat maternal complications.