A MatNeo Data Hub for Scotland

One recommendation of ‘The Best Start – A Five Year Forward Plan for Maternity and Neonatal Care in Scotland’ was to establish a Maternity and Neonatal Data Hub for Scotland.

A MatNeo Data Hub has been created within Public Health Scotland (PHS), with support from the Scottish Perinatal Network, Healthcare Improvement Scotland, Scottish Government, and National Records of Scotland. The MatNeo Data Hub is now part of the Early Years and Young People Programme in PHS.

Developmental work since 2019 includes:

• Establish additional new all-Scotland maternity data sets
  • Antenatal Booking Collection (ABC; including an expansion to collect further variables on mother’s social circumstances, health and behaviours, and antenatal scans)
  • Mother, Birth and Baby (MoBBa; to sit alongside SMR02 and collect data on mother’s health, details of birth and information on baby’s health and treatment
  • Miscarriage (to provide enhanced awareness of numbers of women experiencing miscarriages, numbers of miscarriages and numbers of recurrent miscarriages)
• Routine collection of data on specialist neonatal care (NeoCareIn+)
• Data displays showing maternity and neonatal CORE measures (including the Scottish Pregnancy, Births and Neonatal Data (SPBAND) Dashboard)

The remainder of this page shows links to useful web resources developed by the MatNeo Data Hub and by colleagues in Public Health Scotland:

Useful web resources: 

1  Topics Index 

The Topics Index catalogues individual maternity and neonatal measures already available, including those on the Scottish Pregnancy, Births and Neonatal Data (SPBAND) Dashboard, the Health in the Early Years in Scotland (HEYS) dashboard, Discovery, NMPA, NNAP, National Records of Scotland and PHS websites.  The Topics Index also includes a list of CORE maternity measures. 

The Topics index is available at: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iAcRF8gc1-k7341JygofiSUmsvmKJ_OxUPyE07XVTPU/edit#gid=277533606 

We appreciate the Google Sheets platform may not be available to all our users and are working to develop a more sophisticated accessible platform for the catalogue.   In the meantime, if you cannot access the hyperlink above and would like to view the Topics Index, please contact the Hub Programme Team (phs.matneodatahub@phs.scot) and we will seek alternative ways of sharing the index with you. 

2  Scottish Pregnancy, Births and Neonatal Data Dashboard (SPBAND) 

As part of our COVID-19 response, Public Health Scotland created a data dashboard showing wider impacts of COVID-19.  Pregnancy and Births and babies sections of the Wider Impacts dashboard were updated each month until Sep 2023. Those two sections were replaced in October 2023 by a new Scottish Pregnancy, Births and Neonatal Data (SPBAND) Dashboard. Data on SPBAND is refreshed quarterly (in January, April, July and October each year). 

SPBAND includes the same topics as those that featured in the two sections of the Wider Impacts dashboard it replaces: 

• Pregnancy: number of pregnancies booked; average gestation at booking; number of terminations; average gestation at termination 

• Births and Babies: location of extremely pre-term births; induction of labour; type of birth; third- and fourth-degree perineal tears; pre- and post-term births; stillbirths and infant deaths;  Apgar scores 

SPBAND offers three ways to view data:  time series charts for individual measures and individual Health Boards; small multiple time series charts, to allow comparison (for a particular measure) across Health Board areas, and a multi-indicator overview that displays multiple measures simultaneously, allowing comparison across Health Board areas. 

3  Health in the Early Years in Scotland (HEYS) Dashboard 

The Health in the Early Years in Scotland (HEYS) dashboard provides information on infant feeding (and child development), and is updated quarterly.  A link to data on HEYS is now available from a new Infant feeding menu item on SPBAND. 

4  Discovery 

Another Public Health Scotland dashboard that includes information on maternity care in Scotland is the Discovery dashboard.  You will need to register for a user name and password for this one. 

5  Public Health Scotland Official Statistics on maternal and neonatal health 

Public Health Scotland publishes a series of annual Official Statistics on pregnancy, childbirth and the early care of babies born in Scotland. 

• Births in Scotland: data on mother’s age, ethnicity, deprivation, BMI, maternal diabetes, method of birth, gestation at birth and birthweight. 

• Antenatal Booking in Scotland:  data on numbers of pregnancies booked, gestation at booking, and smoking status (by mother’s age, deprivation and ethnicity, for all three topics). 

• Termination of pregnancy: information on age, gestation, method of termination, deprivation, ethnicity, previous terminations, and grounds for termination. 

• Teenage pregnancies: information is provided on age group (<16, <18, <20), deprivation, and whether the pregnancy was terminated or led to a birth. 

• Congenital Conditions in Scotland: current best estimates of the number of babies with serious congenital conditions. 

• Infant feeding: information on exclusive breastfeeding, mixed, and formula feeding (initiation; first visit; 6-8 week; 13 to 15 month; maternal age; deprivation, ethnicity; looked-after status; maternal smoking status). 

• Pregnancy Screening for Down’s Syndrome, Edward’s Syndrome, and Patau’s Syndrome in Scotland: information on the coverage of screening (including by maternal age group, deprivation quintile and ethnic group), screening results, laboratory activity, invasive diagnostic procedures following screening, and pregnancy outcomes. 

Contact details for MatNeo Data Hub Team  

You can contact the Hub Programme Team by emailing their generic inbox (phs.matneodatahub@phs.scot).