Every maternity service in England must meet new NHS clinical standards designed to significantly reduce the number of women who die during or after pregnancy.
All pregnant women will be offered an early risk assessment for venous thromboembolism (VTE) — blood clots in deep veins, now the leading cause of maternal death — before their first antenatal appointment. Anyone assessed as high risk will be offered thromboprophylaxis (blood thinners) within 72 hours.
Every woman with epilepsy will have access to a local specialist team for epilepsy in pregnancy and will be offered a tailored plan to help control seizures, including timely access to medications deemed safe in pregnancy.
Women will be routinely screened for mental health using a consistent set of questions, with a report provided at their antenatal appointment and referral to NHS perinatal mental health services when needed. Between 2022 and 2024, maternal suicides were the leading cause of death occurring between 6 weeks and 1 year after pregnancy ended, with psychiatric causes accounting for 33% of deaths in this period.
Women who experience a haemorrhage or significant postpartum bleeding will receive earlier care from specialist obstetricians and anaesthetists, with new guidance and lower thresholds for escalating significant blood loss.
Full national rollout of these measures by March 2027 is expected to reduce deaths from blood clots, strokes, cardiac disease, suicide, sepsis, obstetric haemorrhage and pre-eclampsia — conditions responsible for 52% of maternal deaths. Progress on each clinical standard must be reported to NHS trust boards, with escalation to regional and national levels if local delivery falls short.
Although maternal deaths in England are uncommon, most are due to medical conditions that pre-date or develop during pregnancy — such as blood clots and strokes (17%) and cardiac disease (15%) — which can be missed or misattributed to pregnancy. Latest official data show 252 maternal deaths from 2022 to 2024, compared with 257 from 2021 to 2023. Research on deaths from 2021 to 2023 indicates that improvements in care may have changed the outcome for almost half (45%) of the women who died.
Kate Brintworth, Chief Midwifery Officer for England, said every death during or after pregnancy is a tragedy, particularly when differences in care may have altered the outcome. She noted that serious medical symptoms are still sometimes missed, especially in Black and Asian women, and that earlier and more thorough risk assessments will help ensure problems are caught and acted on. One in five women will have a medical issue during pregnancy, and the new measures aim to leave “no stone unturned.”
The new best-practice standards are part of the NHS maternal care bundle, developed with frontline clinicians, women and families, and partner organisations including Royal Colleges, regulators, professional societies and charities. They focus on five areas of clinical care linked to the leading causes of maternal deaths identified by MBRRACE-UK.
Maternity facilities will be upgraded to include direct telephone lines for ambulance crews to transfer pregnant women quickly to labour wards, and new monitoring arrangements so deterioration can be addressed promptly. Up to £5 million has been allocated to NHS trusts this year to buy equipment and support implementation of the maternal care bundle.
This builds on the rollout of the Maternal Outcomes Signal System (MOSS), a digital tool that rapidly analyses routinely recorded maternity ward data to spot potential emerging safety issues requiring urgent attention. The NHS will publish MOSS findings every six months to drive action where trusts are flagged.
The new standards also strengthen the role of 17 maternal medicine centres — specialist hubs established across England to help women with pre-existing or pregnancy-onset medical conditions access extra care. Each centre is led by a multidisciplinary team that includes at least one obstetric physician. Networks linked to these centres ensure expert maternal care is available to all women and that every maternity department recognises key “red flag” pregnancy symptoms and has measures in place for proper assessment.
