Collaborate with us to advance pregnancy and maternity research in OpenSAFELY

We’re just starting work on a new project to prepare for adding the Maternity Services Data Set (MSDS) to OpenSAFELY. This is a year-long project, funded by a Programme Development Grant from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHCR) - and we’re very keen to find collaborators who want to be part of it.

Data has to be prepared before it can be used

Every year, over 750,000 women are pregnant or using maternity care services in England (that figure comes from the ONS Conceptions dataset). Most of the data capturing care during pregnancy and maternity is recorded in the Maternity Services Data Set (MSDS), covering all midwife-led care from the first antenatal booking appointment, through to discharge from a maternity pathway.

This is data that could be incredibly useful for researchers using OpenSAFELY, exploring questions that could ultimately lead to better care for women and children across England.

But adding a new dataset to OpenSAFELY isn’t an easy task. We have to ensure that the data is fit for purpose, which means curating it, and developing a high quality ‘algorithm’ to identify occurrences of pregnancy.

So this initial 12 month project is to do the planning and scoping for that work. We’ll be looking into:

• how to onboard the MSDS data into OpenSAFELY
• how to add additional fields to our secondary care data, relating to pregnancy and maternity care
• mapping out the research tools we will build to make this data useful for researchers
• building a network of researchers, and finding out what sort of research they’d like to do (which will help us decide on the tools we need to create to meet their needs)
• working with a group of patients and public with experience of pregnancy and maternity care, to understand how our tools and research might impact their care and outcomes in future

Our goals are to:

• publish any findings on how the data can be used in a secure and transparent way in research
• build practical tools (such as ehrQL variables for use in OpenSAFELY) to improve care for women and babies - so all this preparatory work will be used to apply for the funds to do this work through an NIHR Programme Grant for Applied Research

Professor Jane Sandall at King’s College London will provide clinical leadership, and Siobhean McCarthy-Perham, Director of National Maternity Voices, will lead on patient and public liaison.

You can take part

We’re looking for collaborators such as:

• researchers who want to use OpenSAFELY for pregnancy and maternity research
• researchers, teams or organisations interested in joining forces with us to apply for more funding to conduct the work we’ve planned during this year, and work with the tools we build to deliver meaningful research to improve outcomes for women and children

In about a year from now, we’ll be applying for a NIHR Programme Grant for Applied Research, and we are keen to have interested researchers co-develop and shape this grant with us

If you are a researcher interested in using OpenSAFELY or potentially collaborating, please complete the expression of interest form.