Maternity Services Data Set
Office for National Statistics (ONS) · Agency/Public Body
In term In term in the September 2026 edition: the latest version runs to 27 November 2026.
- Reference
- DARS-NIC-631605-F2H3M
- Current version
- v2.3
- Term of current version
- 16 May 2025 to 27 November 2026
- Start date
- 28 November 2022
- Data controller
- Sole Data Controller
- Commercial purposes
- No
- Sublicensing
- No
- Files released to date
- 367
Why the data was released
Objective for processing
The Office for National Statistics (ONS), the sole data controller, agrees to process the data required for the following purposes only, as agreed with NHS England:
Statutory Purpose
The Office for National Statistics (ONS), as the executive arm of the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA), requires access to administrative data held by NHS England for the production of official statistics.
In the past it has been difficult for ONS to access administrative data controlled by other Government departments, information that could potentially transform official statistics and the impact they have on decision making for the better. Often this has been caused by the lack of a clear legal basis under which the data can be shared with ONS. As a result, in 2016, ONS set out why legislation was needed for better access to data:
https://uksa.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/publication/data-access-policy-and-legislation/
As a result, the Digital Economy Act in April 2017 amended the Statistics and Registration Services Act (2007) (SRSA) such that ONS can require public authorities to share data with it. See the Digital Economy Act (chapter 7 of part 5):
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2017/30/part/5/chapter/7/enacted
More specifically, section 45c of the SRSA 2007 (as inserted by section 80 of the Digital Economy Act 2017) permits the Statistics Board (of which ONS is a part) to serve a Notice on a public authority requiring it to disclose information it holds in connection with its functions:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2007/18/section/45C
To do so, the information disclosed must be required by the Statistics Board for one or more of its functions, as set out in the SRSA 2007 and the Census Act 1920.
The SRSA 2007 states that ONS’ objectives ‘include promoting and safeguarding the production and publication of official statistics that serve the public good, where serving the public good includes informing the public about social and economic matters and assisting in the development and evaluation of public policy’. It also sets out the Board’s functions, which are specifically referred to in section 45c of the amended SRSA. Notably they include, under section 20, that ONS may produce and publish statistics relating to any matter relating to the United Kingdom or any part of it.
Requirements made under section 45 must also be in line with a statistical statement of principles that has been approved by parliament:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/digital-economy-act-2017-part-5-codes-of-practice/statistics-statement-of-principles-and-code-of-practice-on-changes-to-data-systems
This states that ‘We will only seek access to data for the purposes of fulfilling one or more of our statutory functions, including to produce official statistics and undertake statistical research that meets identifiable user needs for the public good.’
The statement also sets out six principles which ONS will adhere to when requiring information under section 45. The six principles state that ONS will:
- safeguard confidentiality
- be transparent about what data it is accessing and why
- ensure that accessing the data is lawful and meets strict ethical standards
- ensure that accessing the data is in the public interest - for example, the data are fit for purpose for the statistical use which ONS intends
- ensure requiring that the data supplied is proportionate - for example, ONS will have exhausted all other alternatives
- always seek to collaborate with suppliers
In addition, the following is a useful framework for categorizing ONS’ statistical uses for information, such as those covered under this Agreement. They are all related to ONS’ function of producing Official Statistics as aforementioned:
- Improvements to existing Official Statistics
- Development of new Official Statistics - this may involve testing to investigate whether statistics of sufficient quality can be produced, and may also involve the production of statistics badged as ‘experimental’ while further work is done to improve quality aspects such as accuracy
- Quality assurance of Official Statistics
- Development of commentary around Official Statistics
- Replacement of current survey questions - developing statistics from available data to directly replace the need to collect the information through survey questions
- Improving efficiency or accuracy of sampling - for example, ensuring that a representative sample of the target population is taken when conducting a survey of the public, such that the statistics produced from the survey are the best possible reflection of reality
- Research and development of methodology - for example, using data to develop and test linkage methodology that is used to help produce statistics based on other data rather than the original data source
Using robust information governance processes, ONS has determined that the conditions associated with requiring data under section 45c of the amended SRSA have been met for the purposes of this Data Sharing Agreement. This process involved working closely with NHS England to help determine that the data would be of a good enough quality to meet the proposed statistical purposes. This work guided ONS’ assessment against some of the principles underpinning its legal powers - for example whether sharing the data is in the public interest and proportionate in terms of the burden on the supplier. In addition, as part of its commitment to transparency, ONS will publish full details of the reasons for acquiring the information, and ONS notes that NHS England will also publish this Data Sharing Agreement on its data uses register (https://digital.nhs.uk/services/data-access-request-service-dars/data-uses-register).
In terms of public interest, it is worth noting the benefits that hope to be gained from the statistics enabled by this data request do not need to be specific to health and social care when the legal basis to meet the common law duty of confidentiality is section 45c of the SRSA. For example, some of the data required will help improve ONS’ population and economic statistics, which may not benefit health and social care directly. The data shared with ONS under this Agreement will not be onwardly disseminated or shared, except as disclosure controlled aggregate statistics and/or analysis as aggregated data with small numbers suppressed. Any exceptions to this would require additional NHS England approval. It would also require an appropriate alternative legal gateway because section 45c of the SRSA, as amended by the Digital Economy Act, only enables data to be shared with ONS (not for example, other Government departments or academic researchers).
ONS will rely on the following lawful bases from the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for processing personal data, inclusive of special categories of personal data:
• GDPR Article 6(1)(e) - The processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the data controller. The authority for ONS to produce, promote and safeguard official statistics is found in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.
• GDPR Article 9(2)(j) – The processing is necessary for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes in accordance with Article 89(1) based on Union or Member State law which shall be proportionate to the aim pursued, respect the essence of the right to data protection and provide for suitable and specific measures to safeguard the fundamental rights and the interests of the data subject.
ONS is the sole data controller that processes the NHS England data required in line with the purposes set out within this Agreement.
The rest of this section will set out the specific purposes for which ONS requires the Maternity Services Data Set (MSDS). Each purpose will be linked to the framework of statistical uses as set out above. In future, ONS may decide to use the required dataset for purposes not currently outlined within this Agreement. In these cases, the new use will be in line with ONS’ legally defined functions. ONS will inform NHS England and enter into an amended Data Sharing Agreement before proceeding with that new purpose.
MSDS Uses
There are a wide range of statistical uses to which the Office for National Statistics (ONS) intends to process MSDS data. All uses of MSDS data by ONS will be to improve the availability and quality of statistics as part of ONS’ function to produce statistics for the public good. Linkage to other sources at a record level is a prerequisite to success for all proposed uses and therefore identifiers including postcode, date of birth, sex and NHS number are required.
To address the UK GDPR Principle of Data Minimisation ONS have only requested fields that have been deemed necessary for the purposes outlined within this Data Sharing Agreement.
ONS require MSDS Data covering the period 2015/16 to latest available. The number of years requested is limited to the number that ensures adequate power of analysis. For example, in order to explore some of the risk factors which could be impacting on infant mortality, ONS will need to combine several years of MSDS data in their analysis to produce robust statistics and to make comparisons over time.
The frequency of data dissemination is required to support ONS’ COVID-19 analysis work and to ensure ONS have as timely data as possible to enable them to monitor medium and long-term effects.
The data available in the MSDS is not readily available from other sources. ONS confirm that there are no alternative, less intrusive ways of achieving the purposes outlined within this DSA.
1. HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE STATISTICS
ONS' health analysts will use information about who has accessed maternity services as well as when, where, and why maternity services have been accessed for a range of statistical purposes in line with ONS' function to produce statistics for the public good. All uses of the MSDS data for health and social care analysis hope to improve the availability and quality of statistics. Some broad examples of the proposed uses are:
• Understanding health, morbidity and mortality.
• Understanding health inequalities, outcomes and care pathways.
• Understanding the effect of health conditions on socio-economic outcomes and life chances.
• Understanding transitions into and out of health and social care services and the relationship with outcomes.
• Investigating the quality of characteristics data such as ethnicity data across different data sources.
• Understanding the short, medium and long-term impacts of having had COVID-19, treatment for COVID-19 or a COVID-19 vaccine.
• Understanding the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated social, economic and environmental impacts the pandemic has had on health and well-being.
Specific examples of current priority work include:
COVID-19 and Pregnancy
Initial analyses seek to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on pregnancy outcomes (mother and baby) as well as the risk factors of severe COVID-19 outcomes for pregnant women according to different socio-demographic characteristics and vaccination status. Immediate analyses of interest related to the COVID-19 pandemic include:
1. Is pregnancy associated with severe COVID-19 outcomes (such as death, hospitalisation, and Intensive Care Unit (ICU) admission) in women of childbearing age, and to what extent can any associations be explained by vaccination take-up?
2. Is SARS-CoV-2 infection during pregnancy related to birth outcomes (such as live birth, still birth, preterm birth, miscarriage, complication) and, if so, is this relationship dependent on gestational age when infected?
3. Are COVID-19 vaccines safe in pregnancy, in terms of the outcomes of both the mother (such as death, hospitalisation, specific cardiovascular events) and their babies (such as birth outcome, birth weight, Apgar score (stands for Appearance, Pulse, Grimace, Activity, and Respiration and is a test given to newborns soon after birth to check a baby's heart rate, muscle tone, and other signs to see if extra medical care or emergency care is needed) and physical exam results?
4. Do any of the relationships identified in questions 1-3 vary according to socio-demographic characteristics (such as age of mother, area deprivation, ethnicity) or health-related factors (such as pre-existing and gestational conditions, BMI, lifestyle factors)?
Potential future analyses could be extended to include the early postnatal period in order to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on longer term outcomes (e.g. postnatal depression or other issues once mothers/babies are back in the community).
The MSDS data will supplement existing data sources the ONS already hold such as the Public Health Data Asset (including census data, mortality, births and other NHS England sources), enabling ONS to look at the differences in outcomes (COVID-19 and non-COVID-19) for pregnant women and neonates. The current Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) and GPES Data for Pandemic Planning and Research (GDPPR) (held by ONS under DARS-NIC-175120-W5G2X and DARS-NIC-400304-S1P1B) does not contain such fine grain descriptors of pregnancy, and similarly the birth registrations and notifications data only covers some of this information. While many pregnancies can be identified in existing HES data, the MSDS includes a greater proportion of pregnancies that resulted in a spontaneous delivery. MSDS also includes data useful for assessing birth outcomes, such as delivery method.
This work will specifically enable ONS to improve current estimates, develop new statistics and provide more detailed context on COVID-19 and pregnancy.
Child and Maternal Outcomes
Analyses which investigate risk factors and inequalities associated with infant mortality and stillbirths are already in progress as part of ONS’ Integrated Data Programme. The first phase of this work uses linked census, births and deaths data to explore the characteristics of parents and babies and some of their socio-economic context - for infants who die or are stillborn vs those that do not/are not. This will facilitate new analyses using the characteristics of parents/households from the census.
A second phase of work will investigate the possibility of exploring other risk factors through linkage of data on baby delivery (for example from HES) and/or information on, for example, smoking and drinking behaviours of the mother during pregnancy from MSDS. The analysis will again focus on risk factors and inequalities.
There is a stated government ambition in England to halve the stillbirth and neonatal mortality rates from 2010 by 2025. This linkage and subsequent analysis will contribute to an understanding of some of the risk factors for infant mortality and help develop policies to meet this ambition. Linked MSDS data would allow for greater understanding of the care pathways taken when infants die and provide further insight to help target measures and inform interventions and policies which may help achieve this target.
Secondary analyses/longer term analysis will study social inequalities in terms of pregnancy outcomes (mother and baby) with consideration taken of individuals’ medical history. The analysis will be put in the context of the levelling up agenda. Levelling up is a UK moral, social and economic programme across UK government. The Levelling Up White Paper sets out how the government will spread opportunities more equally across the UK.
This work will specifically enable ONS to improve current estimates, develop new statistics and provide more detailed context on child and maternal outcomes.
2. POPULATION AND CENSUS STATISTICS
ONS has an ambition to make greater use of administrative data in the production of population and social statistics. Administrative data are datasets that have been collected by government departments for operational purposes, such as delivering healthcare, collecting taxes or paying benefits, as opposed to being collected primarily for the production of official statistics. In 2023, the National Statistician made a recommendation about the future of the Census and population statistics, with a view to making a greater use of administrative data. The MSDS will help with research into the use of administrative data to produce statistics on topics such as ethnicity, health, disability and language, which are currently obtained from the Census. Of these, ethnicity and health have been identified by the director of the Health, Population and Methods (HPM) Transformation directorate at ONS as key topics that the ONS need to conduct analysis on by December 2022. This analysis has informed ONS’ recommendation on the future of the Census and population statistics.
For example, work so far on ethnicity has used ONS’ administrative-based population estimates (ABPE) dataset as the population base. This dataset was then linked to ethnicity data from HES and Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT), both obtained from NHS England, and the English School Census (ESC) obtained from the Department for Education (DfE). Administrative data-based ethnicity statistics were then produced based on the proportion of people in each ethnic group. ONS are now looking to link ethnicity data to additional datasets, including MSDS, to increase the representativeness of the linked administrative data. This should improve the accuracy of the resulting administrative-based ethnicity statistics.
Access to MSDS would enable ONS to produce improved administrative-based ethnicity statistics that are more likely to meet quality standards. It will also increase the potential for producing statistics that cut across multiple topics, such as income and housing by ethnicity.
As another example, ONS intend to use the MSDS for analysis on the use of administrative data to explore the potential to provide users with more regular and granular information about health outcomes and health inequalities and to improve existing methods for estimating healthy life expectancy.
The work so far on health has explored the potential to model the general health status of the population of England from HES data. ONS found that they were unable to model general health status using HES data alone so are looking to incorporate additional datasets to explore whether this improves model accuracy.
For disability, ONS intend to use the MSDS for analysis on the use of administrative data to explore the potential to provide users with more regular and granular information about disability status. This analysis would require linking data from multiple sources to explore how data coverage and quality compare to statistics produced from Census and social surveys. ONS will also explore similar measures on other NHS England datasets such as IAPT (acquired) and the Community Services Data Set (yet to be acquired) through separate Data Sharing Agreements.
For language, the analysis aims to link together multiple administrative data sources to produce statistics on main language, in line with those currently produced using Census data. Main language is not captured in the HES data ONS already hold so MSDS would be adding more information here.
This work will specifically enable ONS to improve current administrative data-based estimates and assess if new statistics can be developed from this source which could replace information currently collected through survey questions.
The Integrated Data Service (IDS) is a cloud-based Trusted Research Environment (TRE) where analysts process data for the purposes listed in this Agreement.
Amazon Web Services provide IT hosting services to ONS and will store the data as contracted by ONS as a processor.
Google UK Limited provide IT hosting services to ONS for the IDS and will store the data as contracted by ONS as a processor.
Processing activities
There is no flow of data into NHS England from ONS to support this dissemination.
NHS England will flow identifiable MSDS data to ONS via Secure Electronic File Transfer (SEFT). There is no subsequent flow of MSDS data outside of ONS that is not aggregated with small numbers suppressed.
Data Environment
Data security for storage and linkage of the data will be provided within an assured ONS data analysis environment that includes the following elements of security control:
• Need To Access applied through user account access and management. Access to the data is restricted to individuals granted access based on a justified need to access the data
• Controlled ingest and export of data into/out of the Data Access Platform (DAP) environment
• Controlled account access using unique credentials based on job role
• Logged and monitored access of user activity within the DAP environment
• Secure build configuration for infrastructure
• Vulnerability tested infrastructure with appropriate remediation and patching
• Compliance checks against security enforcing controls
• Architectural review against standards and best practice
• Staff security cleared to the appropriate level based on their supervised and/or unsupervised access to sensitive data in accordance with ONS clearance policies and data access processes
• Education of environment users on security policies and secure working practices
• Operational support processes to securely manage the environment
• Risk assessments to identify security risks and actions to mitigate identified risks.
This processing activity takes place in a dedicated ONS environment provided by Amazon Web Services, and based in England and Wales only. They supply support to the system but do not access data. Therefore, any access to the data disseminated under this Agreement would be considered a breach of this Agreement.
The data will reside within Google Cloud Platform (GCP). All cloud services consumed for the storage and use of the data are scoped to securely managed GCP Projects. GCP Projects in scope for this project are not connected to ONS corporate networks. GCP Projects in scope for this project are accessible via the internet for administration/analytical work. Access is securely bound up with Google identity services, internet authentication proxies and multi-factor authentication. All platform infrastructure and storage is deployed into the Europe-west2 region (London) and in any of the 3 available zones for redundancy and high availability (where applicable). Processing of data can only be carried out on GCP infrastructure within the deployed region. Access to GCP platform is region locked to UK IP addresses only. Access to IDS and any data it holds is not permitted from outside the UK. Overseas connections are monitored, and connection attempts will lead to account suspension.
Following a policy specified by the ONS Chief Security Officer, ONS user access to the data environment is only provided after approval of an application by the Information Asset Owner including an ethical assessment of the proposed data use. All individuals processing the data are substantive employees of ONS - a list of approved users is available on request.
With reasonable notice, periodic written/verbal checks may be conducted by an authorised employee of NHS England to confirm compliance with the terms of this Agreement.
ONS will keep a record of any processing of personal data and will provide a copy of such record to NHS England on request. ONS will not transfer or permit the transfer of the data to any territory outside the UK without the prior written consent of NHS England.
As described in section 5a, the proposed purposes require linkage of records at an individual level. However, ONS is only interested in producing aggregate statistics and using these to uncover trends in line with their statutory functions.
As noted above, within the ONS data environment, users set up 'project spaces' and apply for access to the data through the Information Asset Owner. Each 'project space' includes only the data required to carry out the proposed analysis and is only accessible to the users who require access to that data. Users will not be permitted to access identifiers for the purposes of analysis. In addition to the system protocols above, ONS will keep the number of staff permitted to process identifiers to an absolute minimum, and these staff will have a higher level of security clearance (National Vetting level). All other staff will only be permitted to access non-identifiable data.
ONS will never seek to intentionally re-identify any individuals captured within the MSDS. ONS staff are suitably trained in data protection and confidentiality and are experienced in working with extremely sensitive data. To prevent inadvertent re-identification ONS analysts do not scrutinize individual rows of data, rather they run models on large scale datasets with millions of rows and scrutinize the outputs and aggregate results.
Further, only statistical disclosure controlled aggregate outputs will be exportable from the secure data analysis environment. In other words, other than the initial transfer of the data from NHS England to ONS, the identifiable data will never be in transit and will always be protected by procedural controls in place.
Data Linkage
Linkage to other sources at a record-level is a prerequisite to success for all proposed uses, and therefore identifiers including postcode, date of birth, sex and NHS number are required.
Linkage to other sources using NHS number or through identifiers provided by linkage to the Personal Demographic Services (PDS) data (supplied under DARS-NIC-20951-D2K6S) will allow ONS to link to both NHS England and non-NHS England data sources to produce more granular statistics on a range of population and health topics while accounting for wider health, socio-demographic and economic characteristics of the population.
Only those analysts within ONS tasked to carry out and quality assure data linkage or to derive location-based or demographic variables or flags will access personal identifiers. NHS numbers will be used by analysts as a unique identifier to link to other NHS England and non-NHS England datasets.
So that ONS can exercise their function to produce health and social care statistics, linkage of the MSDS with following datasets is required:
- Census data (Collected by ONS)
- Birth registrations (Collected by ONS)
- Birth notifications (obtained from NHS England)
- Death registrations (Collected by ONS)
- All HES sub-sets (obtained from NHS England)
- Emergency Care Dataset (obtained from NHS England)
- Personal Demographic Services (obtained from NHS England)
- Community Services Dataset (to be obtained from NHS England)
- IAPT (obtained from NHS England)
- Annual Population Survey (Collected by ONS)
In addition, COVID-19 specific work such as the COVID-19 and pregnancy analysis would additionally require linkage to:
- General Practice Extraction Service (GPES) Data for pandemic planning and research (GDPPR) (obtained from NHS England)
- Test and Trace data (including genomics) (obtained from the Department of Health Social Care via NHS England)
- COVID-19 Vaccination data (obtained from NHS England and NHS England)
- Coronavirus Infection Survey (CIS) data (Collected by ONS and the University of Oxford)
Population and census statistics purposes would require linkage of the following datasets with MSDS:
Currently available data sources:
- 2011 Census (Collected by ONS)
- Annual Population Survey (Collected by ONS)
- Labour Market Survey (Collected by ONS)
- Emergency Care Dataset (obtained from NHS England)
- IAPT (obtained from NHS England)
- Individualised Learner Record (ILR) (obtained from the Department for Education)
- Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) (obtained from the Department for Education)
- English School Census (ESC) (obtained from the Department for Education)
- Welsh School Census (WSC) (obtained from the Department for Education)
- Benefits and Income Data (BIDS) – (HMRC and Department for Work and Pensions)
- Pay As You Earn Real Time Information (PAYE RTI) (collected by ONS)
-Patient Episode Data for Wales (PEDW) (obtained from Digital Health and Care Wales)
- Emergency Department Dataset (EDDS) for Wales (obtained from Digital Health and Care Wales)
- Birth Notifications (obtained from NHS England)
- Birth registrations (Collected by ONS)
- HES (obtained from NHS England)
- Community Services Dataset (to be obtained from NHS England)
- Personal Demographic Services (obtained from NHS England)
Expected output
The outputs expected from this work include a range of outputs such as statistics, statistical reports, presentations, methodology papers and analyses to carry out ONS’ function to produce statistics for the public good. Should outputs contain any data, this data will be aggregated with small numbers supressed.
Any official statistics produced will be published so that they are publicly available, for example on the Office for National Statistics website, in statistical bulletins, analysis articles or in data dashboards.
Projects focused on new topics or new data sources will include exploration of the feasibility of using and/or linking the data as well as quality assessments of the data and linkage prior to full development of analysis and publication of statistics. Briefings for technical/expert audiences or methodology reports may be written for internal use in the development and assessment of new data sources and analysis. These reports will be published alongside experimental statistics or official statistics on the ONS website or in peer-reviewed journals as appropriate.
All ONS statistical teams engage regularly with users and will seek to provide frequent updates on the production of official statistics through ONS’ regular stakeholder conversations, presentations and events.
ONS have a publishing strategy and team which supports analytical teams to develop different outputs to suit a range of different audiences. ONS also has active communications, media and social media teams to promote dissemination of statistics to reach as wide an audience as possible.
Health and Social Care:
ONS aim to integrate a functionally anonymised version of the MSDS into the existing Public Health Data Asset, along with births registrations and birth notifications data, within a few months of receipt of the MSDS to support the COVID-19 and pregnancy work.
In relation to child and maternal health, the first phase of work on the infant mortality risk factors is due to be completed by Autumn 2022 after which time MSDS could be integrated into the linked dataset for analysis and reporting in 2022/23.
For the wider work on health and social care statistics ONS are looking to improve and develop new statistics using newly linked data to investigate the purposes outlined within section 5a. No specific target dates can be given as ONS will not know if and when experimental or National Statistics will be produced using MSDS data for these purposes until the initial stage of exploration and feasibility are complete.
Population and Census Statistics
Population and census statistics development requires data to be available by November 2022 to enable initial analysis to be complete by the end of December 2022. There is a need to have this information written up for the 2023 National Statistician’s Recommendation on the future of population and social statistics. Work will however continue beyond 2022, as methods and data sources are further developed.
Expected measurable benefits
Legal Gateway
The legal gateway under which data will flow from NHS England to ONS for the purposes of this Agreement is Section 45c of the SRSA 2007 (as amended by the Digital Economy Act 2017). This means ONS can mandate that NHS England share data with ONS when the data is required to allow ONS to exercise its functions, and when the sharing of the data is in line with the statistical statement of principles that underpins these powers.
For example, the purposes for which ONS uses the data must be in the public interest and must serve the public good. However, for this legal gateway, the benefits do not need to be for health and social care specifically. This is unlike some other legal gateways under which NHS England data can be disseminated, for example section 251 of the NHS Act 2006, when research outcomes must benefit health and social care.
In the above context, the following will briefly cover the potential benefits of the processing of the MSDS by ONS:
Health and Social Care
The analysis of the COVID-19 and pregnancy outcomes has the potential to enable the government to better respond to the ongoing public health crisis – for example, through tailored public health interventions or consideration of workforce requirements. These statistics may aid the government to refine its policy response to the pandemic using the best evidence available.
The analysis on child and maternal health has the potential to inform government policy by exploring the impact different risk factors may have on outcomes for babies and mothers. In particular, it could inform monitoring the progress of the government’s ambition to reduce stillbirths and neonatal deaths.
The analysis may also improve the public's understanding of the risk faced by certain population groups, leading to more informed decision making, and additions to the growing body of literature being produced and evaluated by the global academic community.
Ultimately this analysis has the potential to deliver public health benefit by reducing inequalities and COVID-19 related mortality and morbidity.
Population and Census Statistics
The MSDS will be used for research into the potential development of population and census statistics using administrative sources. The research will form part of the evidence base for the 2023 National Statistician’s Recommendation on the future of population and social statistics. The Recommendation will include a decision on whether the ONS has another traditional Census in 2031. As the Census is an important data source for many organisations and decision makers across the country, it is important that the recommendation is based on the best possible evidence. If the decision is that there won’t be a traditional Census in 2031, ONS need to be able to produce statistics on a wide range of topics from alternative data sources, in order to continue to meet user needs for this information. Ensuring that ONS is able to produce the highest quality statistics about the population of England and Wales will mean that healthcare bodies and policy makers are equipped with the best evidence required to make key decisions.
In addition to considering the future of the Census, benefits may be achieved from studying the use of administrative data as there is potential for the production of statistics more frequently than can be achieved from the Census every 10 years. For example, ONS does not currently produce national statistics on the population by ethnic group between Censuses. However, there is a high demand for this information for monitoring inequality. This demand was heightened during the COVID-19 pandemic when there was a need to analyse COVID-19 infections and deaths by ethnicity. Due to the lack of official statistics, public bodies including ONS and the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities had to use either out of date or unofficial ethnicity figures for their analyses. If ONS are able to produce new, annual statistics on the population by ethnic group, this will improve the quality of analysis by ethnicity within the health sector and beyond. This in turn will likely have benefits for policy making and community support.
Health is a high priority topic for users of Census data and has increased in importance since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Department of Health and Social Care, along with all other government departments, specifically use both census and population statistics in the planning and provision of health and social care services and funding allocations. General health data, combined with other characteristics data, can be used to ascertain the impact that social, economic and environmental factors have on health outcomes. Information about general health, long-term health problems and disability may inform resource allocation by central and local government. They are also important topics in the assessment of inequality, and information is used to help target interventions aimed at reducing inequality nationally and locally. Using administrative data to enhance statistics about general health and disability status could allow ONS to provide lower-level geographical outputs on combinations of characteristics more frequently than once every ten years via the Census, which could improve the quality of health-related analysis. This in turn may have benefits for policy making and evaluation, reducing inequality nationally and locally.
Benefits reported so far
The research so far on ethnicity has used the admin-based population estimates dataset as the population base and linked on ethnicity data from Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) and English School Census (ESC). Admin-based ethnicity statistics were then produced based on the proportion of people in each ethnic group. Research is now looking to link on ethnicity data from additional datasets, to increase the percentage of the population that we are able to obtain ethnicity data for and increase the representativeness of the link admin data. This should improve the accuracy of the resulting admin-based ethnicity statistics. See here for more information: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/ethnicity/articles/developingadminbasedethnicitystatisticsforenglandandwales/2020#data-sources-and-quality.
Annual statistics on the population by ethnic group would enable inclusive equality monitoring, better informed policy, and more efficient national and local distribution of infrastructure/services. This would reduce inequality, improve lives, and address intercensal gaps such as people living in communal establishments, travellers, circular migrants, homeless, illegal migrants, children, and young people, etc.
This is the only data source which brings together the admin data from the NHS collected on pregnancies in one place. Using it, we can identify pregnancies and maternities in administrative data sources to produce a point in time estimate. Without this data we will not understand the full potential of admin data, we will be duplicating work across government, in trying to replicate what this data has already done in linking health datasets to understand pregnancy and maternity. The dataset will give a very good coverage of information on people's health issues and population coverage. This will impact the future of general health modelling with the aim to understand how admin data can be used against the general health form census by combining all health, education, population and benefits data.
Record level data of people with a disability as picked up on maternity services will be used to facilitate a feasibility study to identify people with a disability through admin data and assess the datasets suitability for this. This data facilitates investigation into available administrative data sources to generate rules to identify people with a disability. It can be benchmarked against the responses to the 2021 Census. Administrative data (including MSDS) can be used to build a predictive model to predict the probability that people are disabled. The model can be trained using the 2021 Census response, with the aim to be regularly updated using survey data collecting info on disability linked to admin data. The model can then be used with the admin data to produce prevalence estimates, then broken down by all characteristics collected in admin data.
Datasets on the current version
Legal basis for provision: Health and Social Care Act 2012 - s261(5)(d); Other-Statistics and Registration Services Act (2007) Section 45C
| Dataset | Type of data | Sensitivity | Frequency | Confidential data |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maternity Services Data Set (MSDS) v1.5 | Identifiable | Sensitive | One-Off | Statutory exemption to flow confidential data without consent |
| Maternity Services Data Set (MSDS) v2 | Identifiable | Non-Sensitive | Ongoing | Statutory exemption to flow confidential data without consent |
Files released
Files released counts only files released externally by DARS. Access granted in NHS England's own systems, such as its Secure Data Environment, is not included.
Patient opt-outs were not applied to any of the 367 files released under this agreement, across every version. About opt-outs
Files released against version 2.3 of this agreement, summarised by dataset.
| Dataset | Files | First released | Last released | Opt-outs applied |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maternity Services Data Set (MSDS) v2 | 48 | July 2025 | April 2026 | No |
Version history
The register lists each renewal of this agreement as a separate row. This site has 3 versions.
DARS-NIC-631605-F2H3M-v2.3 16 May 2025 to 27 November 2026
- Title
- Maternity Services Data Set
- Commercial
- No
- Sublicensing
- No
- Datasets
- 2
- Files released
- 48
Datasets: Maternity Services Data Set (MSDS) v1.5; Maternity Services Data Set (MSDS) v2
What changed from DARS-NIC-631605-F2H3M-v1.2
Text removed is struck through; text added is underlined. Unchanged paragraphs are summarised rather than repeated.
| Field | Was | Became |
|---|---|---|
| Title | Maternity Services Data Set | |
| Start date | 2025-05-16 | |
| End date | 2026-11-27 |
Objective for processing
[34 paragraphs unchanged]
ONS is the sole data controller that processes the NHS England data required in line with the purposes set out within this Agreement.
Crown Hosting Data Centres Limited (CHDC) are a data processor as they supply the infrastructure on which the data is stored. CHDC however do not access the data held under this Agreement - any access to the data held under this Agreement would be considered a breach of the Agreement.
[4 paragraphs unchanged]
ONS require MSDS
backseries
Data
covering the period 2015/16 to
2021/22 plus Quarterly drops of data until March 2025, which has been changed from a monthly delivery, enabling the ONS to manage delivery of NHS England data more efficiently.
latest available.
The number of years requested is limited to the number that ensures
[33 words unchanged]
their analysis to produce robust statistics and to make comparisons over time.
The frequency of data dissemination is required to support ONS’ COVID-19 analysis
[7 words unchanged]
timely data as possible to enable them to monitor medium and long-term
effects as the pandemic continues.
effects.
[19 paragraphs unchanged]
This is a high-priority project within ONS, with regular updates being provided via the National Statistician to the Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England. It is also time-critical given the immediate need to increase vaccination take-up among pregnant women and mitigate against hospital admissions in times of high demand.
[8 paragraphs unchanged]
ONS has an ambition to make greater use of administrative data in
[35 words unchanged]
primarily for the production of official statistics. In 2023, the National Statistician
will be making
made
a recommendation about the future of the Census and population statistics, with a view to making
a
greater use of administrative data. The MSDS will help with research into
[50 words unchanged]
the ONS need to conduct analysis on by December 2022. This analysis
will inform
has informed
ONS’ recommendation on the future of the Census and population statistics.
[7 paragraphs unchanged]
The Integrated Data Service (IDS) is a cloud-based Trusted Research Environment (TRE) where analysts process data for the purposes listed in this Agreement.
Amazon Web Services provide IT hosting services to ONS and will store the data as contracted by ONS as a processor.
Google UK Limited provide IT hosting services to ONS for the IDS and will store the data as contracted by ONS as a processor.
Processing activities
[16 paragraphs unchanged]
Crown Hosting Data Centres Limited,
This processing activity takes place in
a
joint endeavour between ARK Data Centres
dedicated ONS environment provided by Amazon Web Services,
and
the Cabinet Office, provide private cloud hosting for data stored
based
in
ONS’ DAP
England
and
are therefore listed as a data processor.
Wales only.
They supply support to the system but do not access data. Therefore,
[5 words unchanged]
disseminated under this Agreement would be considered a breach of this Agreement.
The data will reside within Google Cloud Platform (GCP). All cloud services consumed for the storage and use of the data are scoped to securely managed GCP Projects. GCP Projects in scope for this project are not connected to ONS corporate networks. GCP Projects in scope for this project are accessible via the internet for administration/analytical work. Access is securely bound up with Google identity services, internet authentication proxies and multi-factor authentication. All platform infrastructure and storage is deployed into the Europe-west2 region (London) and in any of the 3 available zones for redundancy and high availability (where applicable). Processing of data can only be carried out on GCP infrastructure within the deployed region. Access to GCP platform is region locked to UK IP addresses only. Access to IDS and any data it holds is not permitted from outside the UK. Overseas connections are monitored, and connection attempts will lead to account suspension.
[47 paragraphs unchanged]
Benefits reported
Not stated in the previous version; added here.
The research so far on ethnicity has used the admin-based population estimates dataset as the population base and linked on ethnicity data from Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) and English School Census (ESC). Admin-based ethnicity statistics were then produced based on the proportion of people in each ethnic group. Research is now looking to link on ethnicity data from additional datasets, to increase the percentage of the population that we are able to obtain ethnicity data for and increase the representativeness of the link admin data. This should improve the accuracy of the resulting admin-based ethnicity statistics. See here for more information: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/ethnicity/articles/developingadminbasedethnicitystatisticsforenglandandwales/2020#data-sources-and-quality.
Annual statistics on the population by ethnic group would enable inclusive equality monitoring, better informed policy, and more efficient national and local distribution of infrastructure/services. This would reduce inequality, improve lives, and address intercensal gaps such as people living in communal establishments, travellers, circular migrants, homeless, illegal migrants, children, and young people, etc.
This is the only data source which brings together the admin data from the NHS collected on pregnancies in one place. Using it, we can identify pregnancies and maternities in administrative data sources to produce a point in time estimate. Without this data we will not understand the full potential of admin data, we will be duplicating work across government, in trying to replicate what this data has already done in linking health datasets to understand pregnancy and maternity. The dataset will give a very good coverage of information on people's health issues and population coverage. This will impact the future of general health modelling with the aim to understand how admin data can be used against the general health form census by combining all health, education, population and benefits data.
Record level data of people with a disability as picked up on maternity services will be used to facilitate a feasibility study to identify people with a disability through admin data and assess the datasets suitability for this. This data facilitates investigation into available administrative data sources to generate rules to identify people with a disability. It can be benchmarked against the responses to the 2021 Census. Administrative data (including MSDS) can be used to build a predictive model to predict the probability that people are disabled. The model can be trained using the 2021 Census response, with the aim to be regularly updated using survey data collecting info on disability linked to admin data. The model can then be used with the admin data to produce prevalence estimates, then broken down by all characteristics collected in admin data.
Unchanged: Expected output, Expected measurable benefits.
DARS-NIC-631605-F2H3M-v1.2 7 June 2024 to 27 November 2025
- Title
- Maternity Services Data Set Legal Notice
- Commercial
- No
- Sublicensing
- No
- Datasets
- 2
- Files released
- 36
Datasets: Maternity Services Data Set (MSDS) v1.5; Maternity Services Data Set (MSDS) v2
What changed from DARS-NIC-631605-F2H3M-v0.11
Text removed is struck through; text added is underlined. Unchanged paragraphs are summarised rather than repeated.
| Field | Was | Became |
|---|---|---|
| Start date | 2024-06-07 |
Objective for processing
The Office for National Statistics (ONS), the sole data controller, agrees to process the data required for the following purposes only, as agreed with NHS
Digital:
England:
[1 paragraph unchanged]
The Office for National Statistics (ONS), as the executive arm of the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA), requires access to administrative data held by NHS
Digital
England
for the production of official statistics.
[26 paragraphs unchanged]
Using robust information governance processes, ONS has determined that the conditions associated
[16 words unchanged]
of this Data Sharing Agreement. This process involved working closely with NHS
Digital
England
to help determine that the data would be of a good enough
[57 words unchanged]
of the reasons for acquiring the information, and ONS notes that NHS
Digital
England
will also publish this Data Sharing Agreement on its data uses register (https://digital.nhs.uk/services/data-access-request-service-dars/data-uses-register).
In terms of public interest, it is worth noting the benefits that
[91 words unchanged]
with small numbers suppressed. Any exceptions to this would require additional NHS
Digital
England
approval. It would also require an appropriate alternative legal gateway because section
[16 words unchanged]
shared with ONS (not for example, other Government departments or academic researchers).
[3 paragraphs unchanged]
ONS is the sole data controller that processes the NHS
Digital
England
data required in line with the purposes set out within this Agreement.
[38 words unchanged]
held under this Agreement would be considered a breach of the Agreement.
The rest of this section will set out the specific purposes for
[49 words unchanged]
be in line with ONS’ legally defined functions. ONS will inform NHS
Digital
England
and enter into an amended Data Sharing Agreement before proceeding with that new purpose.
[3 paragraphs unchanged]
ONS require MSDS backseries covering the period 2015/16 to 2021/22 plus
monthly
Quarterly
drops of data until March
2025.
2025, which has been changed from a monthly delivery, enabling the ONS to manage delivery of NHS England data more efficiently.
The number of years requested is limited to the number that ensures
[33 words unchanged]
their analysis to produce robust statistics and to make comparisons over time.
[19 paragraphs unchanged]
The MSDS data will supplement existing data sources the ONS already hold such as the Public Health Data Asset (including census data, mortality, births and other NHS
Digital
England
sources), enabling ONS to look at the differences in outcomes (COVID-19 and
[76 words unchanged]
also includes data useful for assessing birth outcomes, such as delivery method.
[10 paragraphs unchanged]
For example, work so far on ethnicity has used ONS’ administrative-based population
[16 words unchanged]
HES and Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT), both obtained from NHS
Digital,
England,
and the English School Census (ESC) obtained from the Department for Education
[39 words unchanged]
data. This should improve the accuracy of the resulting administrative-based ethnicity statistics.
[3 paragraphs unchanged]
For disability, ONS intend to use the MSDS for analysis on the
[42 words unchanged]
and social surveys. ONS will also explore similar measures on other NHS
Digital
England
datasets such as IAPT (acquired) and the Community Services Data Set (yet to be acquired) through separate Data Sharing Agreements.
[2 paragraphs unchanged]
Processing activities
There is no flow of data into NHS
Digital
England
from ONS to support this dissemination.
NHS
Digital
England
will flow identifiable MSDS data to ONS via Secure Electronic File Transfer
[8 words unchanged]
data outside of ONS that is not aggregated with small numbers suppressed.
[16 paragraphs unchanged]
With reasonable notice, periodic written/verbal checks may be conducted by an authorised employee of NHS
Digital
England
to confirm compliance with the terms of this Agreement.
ONS will keep a record of any processing of personal data and will provide a copy of such record to NHS
Digital
England
on request. ONS will not transfer or permit the transfer of the data to any territory outside the UK without the prior written consent of NHS
Digital.
England.
[3 paragraphs unchanged]
Further, only statistical disclosure controlled aggregate outputs will be exportable from the
[5 words unchanged]
other words, other than the initial transfer of the data from NHS
Digital
England
to ONS, the identifiable data will never be in transit and will always be protected by procedural controls in place.
[2 paragraphs unchanged]
Linkage to other sources using NHS number or through identifiers provided by
[7 words unchanged]
data (supplied under DARS-NIC-20951-D2K6S) will allow ONS to link to both NHS
Digital
England
and non-NHS
Digital
England
data sources to produce more granular statistics on a range of population and health topics while accounting for wider health, socio-demographic and economic characteristics of the population.
Only those analysts within ONS tasked to carry out and quality assure
[19 words unchanged]
used by analysts as a unique identifier to link to other NHS
Digital
England
and non-NHS
Digital
England
datasets.
[3 paragraphs unchanged]
- Birth notifications (obtained from NHS
Digital)
England)
[1 paragraph unchanged]
- All HES sub-sets (obtained from NHS
Digital)
England)
- Emergency Care Dataset (obtained from NHS
Digital)
England)
- Personal Demographic Services (obtained from NHS
Digital)
England)
- Community Services Dataset (to be obtained from NHS
Digital)
England)
- IAPT (obtained from NHS
Digital)
England)
[2 paragraphs unchanged]
- General Practice Extraction Service (GPES) Data for pandemic planning and research (GDPPR) (obtained from NHS
Digital)
England)
[1 paragraph unchanged]
- COVID-19 Vaccination data (obtained from NHS England and NHS
Digital)
England)
[6 paragraphs unchanged]
- Emergency Care Dataset (obtained from NHS
Digital)
England)
- IAPT (obtained from NHS
Digital)
England)
[8 paragraphs unchanged]
- Birth Notifications (obtained from NHS
Digital)
England)
[1 paragraph unchanged]
- HES (obtained from NHS
Digital)
England)
- Community Services Dataset (to be obtained from NHS
Digital)
England)
- Personal Demographic Services (obtained from NHS
Digital)
England)
Expected measurable benefits
[1 paragraph unchanged]
The legal gateway under which data will flow from NHS
Digital
England
to ONS for the purposes of this Agreement is Section 45c of
[6 words unchanged]
the Digital Economy Act 2017). This means ONS can mandate that NHS
Digital
England
share data with ONS when the data is required to allow ONS
[12 words unchanged]
in line with the statistical statement of principles that underpins these powers.
For example, the purposes for which ONS uses the data must be
[26 words unchanged]
care specifically. This is unlike some other legal gateways under which NHS
Digital
England
data can be disseminated, for example section 251 of the NHS Act 2006, when research outcomes must benefit health and social care.
[10 paragraphs unchanged]
Benefits reported
Stated in the previous version and removed here.
Yielded Benefits is not a requirement for new applications.
Unchanged: Expected output.
Objective for processing
The Office for National Statistics (ONS), the sole data controller, agrees to process the data required for the following purposes only, as agreed with NHS England:
Statutory Purpose
The Office for National Statistics (ONS), as the executive arm of the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA), requires access to administrative data held by NHS England for the production of official statistics.
In the past it has been difficult for ONS to access administrative data controlled by other Government departments, information that could potentially transform official statistics and the impact they have on decision making for the better. Often this has been caused by the lack of a clear legal basis under which the data can be shared with ONS. As a result, in 2016, ONS set out why legislation was needed for better access to data:
https://uksa.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/publication/data-access-policy-and-legislation/
As a result, the Digital Economy Act in April 2017 amended the Statistics and Registration Services Act (2007) (SRSA) such that ONS can require public authorities to share data with it. See the Digital Economy Act (chapter 7 of part 5):
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2017/30/part/5/chapter/7/enacted
More specifically, section 45c of the SRSA 2007 (as inserted by section 80 of the Digital Economy Act 2017) permits the Statistics Board (of which ONS is a part) to serve a Notice on a public authority requiring it to disclose information it holds in connection with its functions:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2007/18/section/45C
To do so, the information disclosed must be required by the Statistics Board for one or more of its functions, as set out in the SRSA 2007 and the Census Act 1920.
The SRSA 2007 states that ONS’ objectives ‘include promoting and safeguarding the production and publication of official statistics that serve the public good, where serving the public good includes informing the public about social and economic matters and assisting in the development and evaluation of public policy’. It also sets out the Board’s functions, which are specifically referred to in section 45c of the amended SRSA. Notably they include, under section 20, that ONS may produce and publish statistics relating to any matter relating to the United Kingdom or any part of it.
Requirements made under section 45 must also be in line with a statistical statement of principles that has been approved by parliament:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/digital-economy-act-2017-part-5-codes-of-practice/statistics-statement-of-principles-and-code-of-practice-on-changes-to-data-systems
This states that ‘We will only seek access to data for the purposes of fulfilling one or more of our statutory functions, including to produce official statistics and undertake statistical research that meets identifiable user needs for the public good.’
The statement also sets out six principles which ONS will adhere to when requiring information under section 45. The six principles state that ONS will:
- safeguard confidentiality
- be transparent about what data it is accessing and why
- ensure that accessing the data is lawful and meets strict ethical standards
- ensure that accessing the data is in the public interest - for example, the data are fit for purpose for the statistical use which ONS intends
- ensure requiring that the data supplied is proportionate - for example, ONS will have exhausted all other alternatives
- always seek to collaborate with suppliers
In addition, the following is a useful framework for categorizing ONS’ statistical uses for information, such as those covered under this Agreement. They are all related to ONS’ function of producing Official Statistics as aforementioned:
- Improvements to existing Official Statistics
- Development of new Official Statistics - this may involve testing to investigate whether statistics of sufficient quality can be produced, and may also involve the production of statistics badged as ‘experimental’ while further work is done to improve quality aspects such as accuracy
- Quality assurance of Official Statistics
- Development of commentary around Official Statistics
- Replacement of current survey questions - developing statistics from available data to directly replace the need to collect the information through survey questions
- Improving efficiency or accuracy of sampling - for example, ensuring that a representative sample of the target population is taken when conducting a survey of the public, such that the statistics produced from the survey are the best possible reflection of reality
- Research and development of methodology - for example, using data to develop and test linkage methodology that is used to help produce statistics based on other data rather than the original data source
Using robust information governance processes, ONS has determined that the conditions associated with requiring data under section 45c of the amended SRSA have been met for the purposes of this Data Sharing Agreement. This process involved working closely with NHS England to help determine that the data would be of a good enough quality to meet the proposed statistical purposes. This work guided ONS’ assessment against some of the principles underpinning its legal powers - for example whether sharing the data is in the public interest and proportionate in terms of the burden on the supplier. In addition, as part of its commitment to transparency, ONS will publish full details of the reasons for acquiring the information, and ONS notes that NHS England will also publish this Data Sharing Agreement on its data uses register (https://digital.nhs.uk/services/data-access-request-service-dars/data-uses-register).
In terms of public interest, it is worth noting the benefits that hope to be gained from the statistics enabled by this data request do not need to be specific to health and social care when the legal basis to meet the common law duty of confidentiality is section 45c of the SRSA. For example, some of the data required will help improve ONS’ population and economic statistics, which may not benefit health and social care directly. The data shared with ONS under this Agreement will not be onwardly disseminated or shared, except as disclosure controlled aggregate statistics and/or analysis as aggregated data with small numbers suppressed. Any exceptions to this would require additional NHS England approval. It would also require an appropriate alternative legal gateway because section 45c of the SRSA, as amended by the Digital Economy Act, only enables data to be shared with ONS (not for example, other Government departments or academic researchers).
ONS will rely on the following lawful bases from the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for processing personal data, inclusive of special categories of personal data:
• GDPR Article 6(1)(e) - The processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the data controller. The authority for ONS to produce, promote and safeguard official statistics is found in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.
• GDPR Article 9(2)(j) – The processing is necessary for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes in accordance with Article 89(1) based on Union or Member State law which shall be proportionate to the aim pursued, respect the essence of the right to data protection and provide for suitable and specific measures to safeguard the fundamental rights and the interests of the data subject.
ONS is the sole data controller that processes the NHS England data required in line with the purposes set out within this Agreement. Crown Hosting Data Centres Limited (CHDC) are a data processor as they supply the infrastructure on which the data is stored. CHDC however do not access the data held under this Agreement - any access to the data held under this Agreement would be considered a breach of the Agreement.
The rest of this section will set out the specific purposes for which ONS requires the Maternity Services Data Set (MSDS). Each purpose will be linked to the framework of statistical uses as set out above. In future, ONS may decide to use the required dataset for purposes not currently outlined within this Agreement. In these cases, the new use will be in line with ONS’ legally defined functions. ONS will inform NHS England and enter into an amended Data Sharing Agreement before proceeding with that new purpose.
MSDS Uses
There are a wide range of statistical uses to which the Office for National Statistics (ONS) intends to process MSDS data. All uses of MSDS data by ONS will be to improve the availability and quality of statistics as part of ONS’ function to produce statistics for the public good. Linkage to other sources at a record level is a prerequisite to success for all proposed uses and therefore identifiers including postcode, date of birth, sex and NHS number are required.
To address the UK GDPR Principle of Data Minimisation ONS have only requested fields that have been deemed necessary for the purposes outlined within this Data Sharing Agreement.
ONS require MSDS backseries covering the period 2015/16 to 2021/22 plus Quarterly drops of data until March 2025, which has been changed from a monthly delivery, enabling the ONS to manage delivery of NHS England data more efficiently. The number of years requested is limited to the number that ensures adequate power of analysis. For example, in order to explore some of the risk factors which could be impacting on infant mortality, ONS will need to combine several years of MSDS data in their analysis to produce robust statistics and to make comparisons over time.
The frequency of data dissemination is required to support ONS’ COVID-19 analysis work and to ensure ONS have as timely data as possible to enable them to monitor medium and long-term effects as the pandemic continues.
The data available in the MSDS is not readily available from other sources. ONS confirm that there are no alternative, less intrusive ways of achieving the purposes outlined within this DSA.
1. HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE STATISTICS
ONS' health analysts will use information about who has accessed maternity services as well as when, where, and why maternity services have been accessed for a range of statistical purposes in line with ONS' function to produce statistics for the public good. All uses of the MSDS data for health and social care analysis hope to improve the availability and quality of statistics. Some broad examples of the proposed uses are:
• Understanding health, morbidity and mortality.
• Understanding health inequalities, outcomes and care pathways.
• Understanding the effect of health conditions on socio-economic outcomes and life chances.
• Understanding transitions into and out of health and social care services and the relationship with outcomes.
• Investigating the quality of characteristics data such as ethnicity data across different data sources.
• Understanding the short, medium and long-term impacts of having had COVID-19, treatment for COVID-19 or a COVID-19 vaccine.
• Understanding the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated social, economic and environmental impacts the pandemic has had on health and well-being.
Specific examples of current priority work include:
COVID-19 and Pregnancy
Initial analyses seek to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on pregnancy outcomes (mother and baby) as well as the risk factors of severe COVID-19 outcomes for pregnant women according to different socio-demographic characteristics and vaccination status. Immediate analyses of interest related to the COVID-19 pandemic include:
1. Is pregnancy associated with severe COVID-19 outcomes (such as death, hospitalisation, and Intensive Care Unit (ICU) admission) in women of childbearing age, and to what extent can any associations be explained by vaccination take-up?
2. Is SARS-CoV-2 infection during pregnancy related to birth outcomes (such as live birth, still birth, preterm birth, miscarriage, complication) and, if so, is this relationship dependent on gestational age when infected?
3. Are COVID-19 vaccines safe in pregnancy, in terms of the outcomes of both the mother (such as death, hospitalisation, specific cardiovascular events) and their babies (such as birth outcome, birth weight, Apgar score (stands for Appearance, Pulse, Grimace, Activity, and Respiration and is a test given to newborns soon after birth to check a baby's heart rate, muscle tone, and other signs to see if extra medical care or emergency care is needed) and physical exam results?
4. Do any of the relationships identified in questions 1-3 vary according to socio-demographic characteristics (such as age of mother, area deprivation, ethnicity) or health-related factors (such as pre-existing and gestational conditions, BMI, lifestyle factors)?
Potential future analyses could be extended to include the early postnatal period in order to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on longer term outcomes (e.g. postnatal depression or other issues once mothers/babies are back in the community).
The MSDS data will supplement existing data sources the ONS already hold such as the Public Health Data Asset (including census data, mortality, births and other NHS England sources), enabling ONS to look at the differences in outcomes (COVID-19 and non-COVID-19) for pregnant women and neonates. The current Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) and GPES Data for Pandemic Planning and Research (GDPPR) (held by ONS under DARS-NIC-175120-W5G2X and DARS-NIC-400304-S1P1B) does not contain such fine grain descriptors of pregnancy, and similarly the birth registrations and notifications data only covers some of this information. While many pregnancies can be identified in existing HES data, the MSDS includes a greater proportion of pregnancies that resulted in a spontaneous delivery. MSDS also includes data useful for assessing birth outcomes, such as delivery method.
This is a high-priority project within ONS, with regular updates being provided via the National Statistician to the Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England. It is also time-critical given the immediate need to increase vaccination take-up among pregnant women and mitigate against hospital admissions in times of high demand.
This work will specifically enable ONS to improve current estimates, develop new statistics and provide more detailed context on COVID-19 and pregnancy.
Child and Maternal Outcomes
Analyses which investigate risk factors and inequalities associated with infant mortality and stillbirths are already in progress as part of ONS’ Integrated Data Programme. The first phase of this work uses linked census, births and deaths data to explore the characteristics of parents and babies and some of their socio-economic context - for infants who die or are stillborn vs those that do not/are not. This will facilitate new analyses using the characteristics of parents/households from the census.
A second phase of work will investigate the possibility of exploring other risk factors through linkage of data on baby delivery (for example from HES) and/or information on, for example, smoking and drinking behaviours of the mother during pregnancy from MSDS. The analysis will again focus on risk factors and inequalities.
There is a stated government ambition in England to halve the stillbirth and neonatal mortality rates from 2010 by 2025. This linkage and subsequent analysis will contribute to an understanding of some of the risk factors for infant mortality and help develop policies to meet this ambition. Linked MSDS data would allow for greater understanding of the care pathways taken when infants die and provide further insight to help target measures and inform interventions and policies which may help achieve this target.
Secondary analyses/longer term analysis will study social inequalities in terms of pregnancy outcomes (mother and baby) with consideration taken of individuals’ medical history. The analysis will be put in the context of the levelling up agenda. Levelling up is a UK moral, social and economic programme across UK government. The Levelling Up White Paper sets out how the government will spread opportunities more equally across the UK.
This work will specifically enable ONS to improve current estimates, develop new statistics and provide more detailed context on child and maternal outcomes.
2. POPULATION AND CENSUS STATISTICS
ONS has an ambition to make greater use of administrative data in the production of population and social statistics. Administrative data are datasets that have been collected by government departments for operational purposes, such as delivering healthcare, collecting taxes or paying benefits, as opposed to being collected primarily for the production of official statistics. In 2023, the National Statistician will be making a recommendation about the future of the Census and population statistics, with a view to making greater use of administrative data. The MSDS will help with research into the use of administrative data to produce statistics on topics such as ethnicity, health, disability and language, which are currently obtained from the Census. Of these, ethnicity and health have been identified by the director of the Health, Population and Methods (HPM) Transformation directorate at ONS as key topics that the ONS need to conduct analysis on by December 2022. This analysis will inform ONS’ recommendation on the future of the Census and population statistics.
For example, work so far on ethnicity has used ONS’ administrative-based population estimates (ABPE) dataset as the population base. This dataset was then linked to ethnicity data from HES and Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT), both obtained from NHS England, and the English School Census (ESC) obtained from the Department for Education (DfE). Administrative data-based ethnicity statistics were then produced based on the proportion of people in each ethnic group. ONS are now looking to link ethnicity data to additional datasets, including MSDS, to increase the representativeness of the linked administrative data. This should improve the accuracy of the resulting administrative-based ethnicity statistics.
Access to MSDS would enable ONS to produce improved administrative-based ethnicity statistics that are more likely to meet quality standards. It will also increase the potential for producing statistics that cut across multiple topics, such as income and housing by ethnicity.
As another example, ONS intend to use the MSDS for analysis on the use of administrative data to explore the potential to provide users with more regular and granular information about health outcomes and health inequalities and to improve existing methods for estimating healthy life expectancy.
The work so far on health has explored the potential to model the general health status of the population of England from HES data. ONS found that they were unable to model general health status using HES data alone so are looking to incorporate additional datasets to explore whether this improves model accuracy.
For disability, ONS intend to use the MSDS for analysis on the use of administrative data to explore the potential to provide users with more regular and granular information about disability status. This analysis would require linking data from multiple sources to explore how data coverage and quality compare to statistics produced from Census and social surveys. ONS will also explore similar measures on other NHS England datasets such as IAPT (acquired) and the Community Services Data Set (yet to be acquired) through separate Data Sharing Agreements.
For language, the analysis aims to link together multiple administrative data sources to produce statistics on main language, in line with those currently produced using Census data. Main language is not captured in the HES data ONS already hold so MSDS would be adding more information here.
This work will specifically enable ONS to improve current administrative data-based estimates and assess if new statistics can be developed from this source which could replace information currently collected through survey questions.
Expected output
The outputs expected from this work include a range of outputs such as statistics, statistical reports, presentations, methodology papers and analyses to carry out ONS’ function to produce statistics for the public good. Should outputs contain any data, this data will be aggregated with small numbers supressed.
Any official statistics produced will be published so that they are publicly available, for example on the Office for National Statistics website, in statistical bulletins, analysis articles or in data dashboards.
Projects focused on new topics or new data sources will include exploration of the feasibility of using and/or linking the data as well as quality assessments of the data and linkage prior to full development of analysis and publication of statistics. Briefings for technical/expert audiences or methodology reports may be written for internal use in the development and assessment of new data sources and analysis. These reports will be published alongside experimental statistics or official statistics on the ONS website or in peer-reviewed journals as appropriate.
All ONS statistical teams engage regularly with users and will seek to provide frequent updates on the production of official statistics through ONS’ regular stakeholder conversations, presentations and events.
ONS have a publishing strategy and team which supports analytical teams to develop different outputs to suit a range of different audiences. ONS also has active communications, media and social media teams to promote dissemination of statistics to reach as wide an audience as possible.
Health and Social Care:
ONS aim to integrate a functionally anonymised version of the MSDS into the existing Public Health Data Asset, along with births registrations and birth notifications data, within a few months of receipt of the MSDS to support the COVID-19 and pregnancy work.
In relation to child and maternal health, the first phase of work on the infant mortality risk factors is due to be completed by Autumn 2022 after which time MSDS could be integrated into the linked dataset for analysis and reporting in 2022/23.
For the wider work on health and social care statistics ONS are looking to improve and develop new statistics using newly linked data to investigate the purposes outlined within section 5a. No specific target dates can be given as ONS will not know if and when experimental or National Statistics will be produced using MSDS data for these purposes until the initial stage of exploration and feasibility are complete.
Population and Census Statistics
Population and census statistics development requires data to be available by November 2022 to enable initial analysis to be complete by the end of December 2022. There is a need to have this information written up for the 2023 National Statistician’s Recommendation on the future of population and social statistics. Work will however continue beyond 2022, as methods and data sources are further developed.
DARS-NIC-631605-F2H3M-v0.11 28 November 2022 to 27 November 2025
- Title
- Maternity Services Data Set Legal Notice
- Commercial
- No
- Sublicensing
- No
- Datasets
- 2
- Files released
- 283
Datasets: Maternity Services Data Set (MSDS) v1.5; Maternity Services Data Set (MSDS) v2
Objective for processing
The Office for National Statistics (ONS), the sole data controller, agrees to process the data required for the following purposes only, as agreed with NHS Digital:
Statutory Purpose
The Office for National Statistics (ONS), as the executive arm of the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA), requires access to administrative data held by NHS Digital for the production of official statistics.
In the past it has been difficult for ONS to access administrative data controlled by other Government departments, information that could potentially transform official statistics and the impact they have on decision making for the better. Often this has been caused by the lack of a clear legal basis under which the data can be shared with ONS. As a result, in 2016, ONS set out why legislation was needed for better access to data:
https://uksa.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/publication/data-access-policy-and-legislation/
As a result, the Digital Economy Act in April 2017 amended the Statistics and Registration Services Act (2007) (SRSA) such that ONS can require public authorities to share data with it. See the Digital Economy Act (chapter 7 of part 5):
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2017/30/part/5/chapter/7/enacted
More specifically, section 45c of the SRSA 2007 (as inserted by section 80 of the Digital Economy Act 2017) permits the Statistics Board (of which ONS is a part) to serve a Notice on a public authority requiring it to disclose information it holds in connection with its functions:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2007/18/section/45C
To do so, the information disclosed must be required by the Statistics Board for one or more of its functions, as set out in the SRSA 2007 and the Census Act 1920.
The SRSA 2007 states that ONS’ objectives ‘include promoting and safeguarding the production and publication of official statistics that serve the public good, where serving the public good includes informing the public about social and economic matters and assisting in the development and evaluation of public policy’. It also sets out the Board’s functions, which are specifically referred to in section 45c of the amended SRSA. Notably they include, under section 20, that ONS may produce and publish statistics relating to any matter relating to the United Kingdom or any part of it.
Requirements made under section 45 must also be in line with a statistical statement of principles that has been approved by parliament:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/digital-economy-act-2017-part-5-codes-of-practice/statistics-statement-of-principles-and-code-of-practice-on-changes-to-data-systems
This states that ‘We will only seek access to data for the purposes of fulfilling one or more of our statutory functions, including to produce official statistics and undertake statistical research that meets identifiable user needs for the public good.’
The statement also sets out six principles which ONS will adhere to when requiring information under section 45. The six principles state that ONS will:
- safeguard confidentiality
- be transparent about what data it is accessing and why
- ensure that accessing the data is lawful and meets strict ethical standards
- ensure that accessing the data is in the public interest - for example, the data are fit for purpose for the statistical use which ONS intends
- ensure requiring that the data supplied is proportionate - for example, ONS will have exhausted all other alternatives
- always seek to collaborate with suppliers
In addition, the following is a useful framework for categorizing ONS’ statistical uses for information, such as those covered under this Agreement. They are all related to ONS’ function of producing Official Statistics as aforementioned:
- Improvements to existing Official Statistics
- Development of new Official Statistics - this may involve testing to investigate whether statistics of sufficient quality can be produced, and may also involve the production of statistics badged as ‘experimental’ while further work is done to improve quality aspects such as accuracy
- Quality assurance of Official Statistics
- Development of commentary around Official Statistics
- Replacement of current survey questions - developing statistics from available data to directly replace the need to collect the information through survey questions
- Improving efficiency or accuracy of sampling - for example, ensuring that a representative sample of the target population is taken when conducting a survey of the public, such that the statistics produced from the survey are the best possible reflection of reality
- Research and development of methodology - for example, using data to develop and test linkage methodology that is used to help produce statistics based on other data rather than the original data source
Using robust information governance processes, ONS has determined that the conditions associated with requiring data under section 45c of the amended SRSA have been met for the purposes of this Data Sharing Agreement. This process involved working closely with NHS Digital to help determine that the data would be of a good enough quality to meet the proposed statistical purposes. This work guided ONS’ assessment against some of the principles underpinning its legal powers - for example whether sharing the data is in the public interest and proportionate in terms of the burden on the supplier. In addition, as part of its commitment to transparency, ONS will publish full details of the reasons for acquiring the information, and ONS notes that NHS Digital will also publish this Data Sharing Agreement on its data uses register (https://digital.nhs.uk/services/data-access-request-service-dars/data-uses-register).
In terms of public interest, it is worth noting the benefits that hope to be gained from the statistics enabled by this data request do not need to be specific to health and social care when the legal basis to meet the common law duty of confidentiality is section 45c of the SRSA. For example, some of the data required will help improve ONS’ population and economic statistics, which may not benefit health and social care directly. The data shared with ONS under this Agreement will not be onwardly disseminated or shared, except as disclosure controlled aggregate statistics and/or analysis as aggregated data with small numbers suppressed. Any exceptions to this would require additional NHS Digital approval. It would also require an appropriate alternative legal gateway because section 45c of the SRSA, as amended by the Digital Economy Act, only enables data to be shared with ONS (not for example, other Government departments or academic researchers).
ONS will rely on the following lawful bases from the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for processing personal data, inclusive of special categories of personal data:
• GDPR Article 6(1)(e) - The processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the data controller. The authority for ONS to produce, promote and safeguard official statistics is found in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.
• GDPR Article 9(2)(j) – The processing is necessary for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes in accordance with Article 89(1) based on Union or Member State law which shall be proportionate to the aim pursued, respect the essence of the right to data protection and provide for suitable and specific measures to safeguard the fundamental rights and the interests of the data subject.
ONS is the sole data controller that processes the NHS Digital data required in line with the purposes set out within this Agreement. Crown Hosting Data Centres Limited (CHDC) are a data processor as they supply the infrastructure on which the data is stored. CHDC however do not access the data held under this Agreement - any access to the data held under this Agreement would be considered a breach of the Agreement.
The rest of this section will set out the specific purposes for which ONS requires the Maternity Services Data Set (MSDS). Each purpose will be linked to the framework of statistical uses as set out above. In future, ONS may decide to use the required dataset for purposes not currently outlined within this Agreement. In these cases, the new use will be in line with ONS’ legally defined functions. ONS will inform NHS Digital and enter into an amended Data Sharing Agreement before proceeding with that new purpose.
MSDS Uses
There are a wide range of statistical uses to which the Office for National Statistics (ONS) intends to process MSDS data. All uses of MSDS data by ONS will be to improve the availability and quality of statistics as part of ONS’ function to produce statistics for the public good. Linkage to other sources at a record level is a prerequisite to success for all proposed uses and therefore identifiers including postcode, date of birth, sex and NHS number are required.
To address the UK GDPR Principle of Data Minimisation ONS have only requested fields that have been deemed necessary for the purposes outlined within this Data Sharing Agreement.
ONS require MSDS backseries covering the period 2015/16 to 2021/22 plus monthly drops of data until March 2025. The number of years requested is limited to the number that ensures adequate power of analysis. For example, in order to explore some of the risk factors which could be impacting on infant mortality, ONS will need to combine several years of MSDS data in their analysis to produce robust statistics and to make comparisons over time.
The frequency of data dissemination is required to support ONS’ COVID-19 analysis work and to ensure ONS have as timely data as possible to enable them to monitor medium and long-term effects as the pandemic continues.
The data available in the MSDS is not readily available from other sources. ONS confirm that there are no alternative, less intrusive ways of achieving the purposes outlined within this DSA.
1. HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE STATISTICS
ONS' health analysts will use information about who has accessed maternity services as well as when, where, and why maternity services have been accessed for a range of statistical purposes in line with ONS' function to produce statistics for the public good. All uses of the MSDS data for health and social care analysis hope to improve the availability and quality of statistics. Some broad examples of the proposed uses are:
• Understanding health, morbidity and mortality.
• Understanding health inequalities, outcomes and care pathways.
• Understanding the effect of health conditions on socio-economic outcomes and life chances.
• Understanding transitions into and out of health and social care services and the relationship with outcomes.
• Investigating the quality of characteristics data such as ethnicity data across different data sources.
• Understanding the short, medium and long-term impacts of having had COVID-19, treatment for COVID-19 or a COVID-19 vaccine.
• Understanding the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated social, economic and environmental impacts the pandemic has had on health and well-being.
Specific examples of current priority work include:
COVID-19 and Pregnancy
Initial analyses seek to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on pregnancy outcomes (mother and baby) as well as the risk factors of severe COVID-19 outcomes for pregnant women according to different socio-demographic characteristics and vaccination status. Immediate analyses of interest related to the COVID-19 pandemic include:
1. Is pregnancy associated with severe COVID-19 outcomes (such as death, hospitalisation, and Intensive Care Unit (ICU) admission) in women of childbearing age, and to what extent can any associations be explained by vaccination take-up?
2. Is SARS-CoV-2 infection during pregnancy related to birth outcomes (such as live birth, still birth, preterm birth, miscarriage, complication) and, if so, is this relationship dependent on gestational age when infected?
3. Are COVID-19 vaccines safe in pregnancy, in terms of the outcomes of both the mother (such as death, hospitalisation, specific cardiovascular events) and their babies (such as birth outcome, birth weight, Apgar score (stands for Appearance, Pulse, Grimace, Activity, and Respiration and is a test given to newborns soon after birth to check a baby's heart rate, muscle tone, and other signs to see if extra medical care or emergency care is needed) and physical exam results?
4. Do any of the relationships identified in questions 1-3 vary according to socio-demographic characteristics (such as age of mother, area deprivation, ethnicity) or health-related factors (such as pre-existing and gestational conditions, BMI, lifestyle factors)?
Potential future analyses could be extended to include the early postnatal period in order to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on longer term outcomes (e.g. postnatal depression or other issues once mothers/babies are back in the community).
The MSDS data will supplement existing data sources the ONS already hold such as the Public Health Data Asset (including census data, mortality, births and other NHS Digital sources), enabling ONS to look at the differences in outcomes (COVID-19 and non-COVID-19) for pregnant women and neonates. The current Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) and GPES Data for Pandemic Planning and Research (GDPPR) (held by ONS under DARS-NIC-175120-W5G2X and DARS-NIC-400304-S1P1B) does not contain such fine grain descriptors of pregnancy, and similarly the birth registrations and notifications data only covers some of this information. While many pregnancies can be identified in existing HES data, the MSDS includes a greater proportion of pregnancies that resulted in a spontaneous delivery. MSDS also includes data useful for assessing birth outcomes, such as delivery method.
This is a high-priority project within ONS, with regular updates being provided via the National Statistician to the Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England. It is also time-critical given the immediate need to increase vaccination take-up among pregnant women and mitigate against hospital admissions in times of high demand.
This work will specifically enable ONS to improve current estimates, develop new statistics and provide more detailed context on COVID-19 and pregnancy.
Child and Maternal Outcomes
Analyses which investigate risk factors and inequalities associated with infant mortality and stillbirths are already in progress as part of ONS’ Integrated Data Programme. The first phase of this work uses linked census, births and deaths data to explore the characteristics of parents and babies and some of their socio-economic context - for infants who die or are stillborn vs those that do not/are not. This will facilitate new analyses using the characteristics of parents/households from the census.
A second phase of work will investigate the possibility of exploring other risk factors through linkage of data on baby delivery (for example from HES) and/or information on, for example, smoking and drinking behaviours of the mother during pregnancy from MSDS. The analysis will again focus on risk factors and inequalities.
There is a stated government ambition in England to halve the stillbirth and neonatal mortality rates from 2010 by 2025. This linkage and subsequent analysis will contribute to an understanding of some of the risk factors for infant mortality and help develop policies to meet this ambition. Linked MSDS data would allow for greater understanding of the care pathways taken when infants die and provide further insight to help target measures and inform interventions and policies which may help achieve this target.
Secondary analyses/longer term analysis will study social inequalities in terms of pregnancy outcomes (mother and baby) with consideration taken of individuals’ medical history. The analysis will be put in the context of the levelling up agenda. Levelling up is a UK moral, social and economic programme across UK government. The Levelling Up White Paper sets out how the government will spread opportunities more equally across the UK.
This work will specifically enable ONS to improve current estimates, develop new statistics and provide more detailed context on child and maternal outcomes.
2. POPULATION AND CENSUS STATISTICS
ONS has an ambition to make greater use of administrative data in the production of population and social statistics. Administrative data are datasets that have been collected by government departments for operational purposes, such as delivering healthcare, collecting taxes or paying benefits, as opposed to being collected primarily for the production of official statistics. In 2023, the National Statistician will be making a recommendation about the future of the Census and population statistics, with a view to making greater use of administrative data. The MSDS will help with research into the use of administrative data to produce statistics on topics such as ethnicity, health, disability and language, which are currently obtained from the Census. Of these, ethnicity and health have been identified by the director of the Health, Population and Methods (HPM) Transformation directorate at ONS as key topics that the ONS need to conduct analysis on by December 2022. This analysis will inform ONS’ recommendation on the future of the Census and population statistics.
For example, work so far on ethnicity has used ONS’ administrative-based population estimates (ABPE) dataset as the population base. This dataset was then linked to ethnicity data from HES and Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT), both obtained from NHS Digital, and the English School Census (ESC) obtained from the Department for Education (DfE). Administrative data-based ethnicity statistics were then produced based on the proportion of people in each ethnic group. ONS are now looking to link ethnicity data to additional datasets, including MSDS, to increase the representativeness of the linked administrative data. This should improve the accuracy of the resulting administrative-based ethnicity statistics.
Access to MSDS would enable ONS to produce improved administrative-based ethnicity statistics that are more likely to meet quality standards. It will also increase the potential for producing statistics that cut across multiple topics, such as income and housing by ethnicity.
As another example, ONS intend to use the MSDS for analysis on the use of administrative data to explore the potential to provide users with more regular and granular information about health outcomes and health inequalities and to improve existing methods for estimating healthy life expectancy.
The work so far on health has explored the potential to model the general health status of the population of England from HES data. ONS found that they were unable to model general health status using HES data alone so are looking to incorporate additional datasets to explore whether this improves model accuracy.
For disability, ONS intend to use the MSDS for analysis on the use of administrative data to explore the potential to provide users with more regular and granular information about disability status. This analysis would require linking data from multiple sources to explore how data coverage and quality compare to statistics produced from Census and social surveys. ONS will also explore similar measures on other NHS Digital datasets such as IAPT (acquired) and the Community Services Data Set (yet to be acquired) through separate Data Sharing Agreements.
For language, the analysis aims to link together multiple administrative data sources to produce statistics on main language, in line with those currently produced using Census data. Main language is not captured in the HES data ONS already hold so MSDS would be adding more information here.
This work will specifically enable ONS to improve current administrative data-based estimates and assess if new statistics can be developed from this source which could replace information currently collected through survey questions.
Expected output
The outputs expected from this work include a range of outputs such as statistics, statistical reports, presentations, methodology papers and analyses to carry out ONS’ function to produce statistics for the public good. Should outputs contain any data, this data will be aggregated with small numbers supressed.
Any official statistics produced will be published so that they are publicly available, for example on the Office for National Statistics website, in statistical bulletins, analysis articles or in data dashboards.
Projects focused on new topics or new data sources will include exploration of the feasibility of using and/or linking the data as well as quality assessments of the data and linkage prior to full development of analysis and publication of statistics. Briefings for technical/expert audiences or methodology reports may be written for internal use in the development and assessment of new data sources and analysis. These reports will be published alongside experimental statistics or official statistics on the ONS website or in peer-reviewed journals as appropriate.
All ONS statistical teams engage regularly with users and will seek to provide frequent updates on the production of official statistics through ONS’ regular stakeholder conversations, presentations and events.
ONS have a publishing strategy and team which supports analytical teams to develop different outputs to suit a range of different audiences. ONS also has active communications, media and social media teams to promote dissemination of statistics to reach as wide an audience as possible.
Health and Social Care:
ONS aim to integrate a functionally anonymised version of the MSDS into the existing Public Health Data Asset, along with births registrations and birth notifications data, within a few months of receipt of the MSDS to support the COVID-19 and pregnancy work.
In relation to child and maternal health, the first phase of work on the infant mortality risk factors is due to be completed by Autumn 2022 after which time MSDS could be integrated into the linked dataset for analysis and reporting in 2022/23.
For the wider work on health and social care statistics ONS are looking to improve and develop new statistics using newly linked data to investigate the purposes outlined within section 5a. No specific target dates can be given as ONS will not know if and when experimental or National Statistics will be produced using MSDS data for these purposes until the initial stage of exploration and feasibility are complete.
Population and Census Statistics
Population and census statistics development requires data to be available by November 2022 to enable initial analysis to be complete by the end of December 2022. There is a need to have this information written up for the 2023 National Statistician’s Recommendation on the future of population and social statistics. Work will however continue beyond 2022, as methods and data sources are further developed.
Benefits reported
Yielded Benefits is not a requirement for new applications.
Register history
When this agreement appeared in, or was edited in, each monthly edition of the register. Built by comparing every edition this site holds.
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December 2022 —
first listed. 1 version: DARS-NIC-631605-F2H3M-v0.11
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August 2024
1 version added: DARS-NIC-631605-F2H3M-v1.2
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June 2025
1 version added: DARS-NIC-631605-F2H3M-v2.3
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July 2025
Renamed Data controllers: Office for National Statistics now named Office for National Statistics (ONS). Not counted as a change.
Cite this page
NHS England (2026) Data Uses Register, September 2026 edition, agreement DARS-NIC-631605-F2H3M, “Maternity Services Data Set”. Read via NHS Data Access Explorer (unofficial), https://healthdatauses.uk/agreements/dars-nic-631605-f2h3m/ (accessed [date]).
This address stays the same, but the page is rebuilt with each monthly edition, so the citation names the edition it shows. Every edition's data is kept in the facts store.
Source: datausesregister_september2026.xlsx, September 2026 edition of the NHS England Data Uses Register. Search that workbook for DARS-NIC-631605-F2H3M to see the original rows.