7 October 2021

We’re celebrating! And we hope you will too with a significant policy change that will help ensure better and safer births of twins, triplets or more.  

After many years of campaigning, multiple births are now explicitly mentioned in the Clinical Negligence Scheme for Trusts (CNST).

What does this all mean?

In England, all Hospital Trusts pay to be members of the scheme which handles all clinical negligence claims against the NHS.

As part of the CNST a Maternity Incentive Scheme was also introduced (maternity care is the biggest spend for the CNST).

Of the clinical negligence claims notified in 2020/21, obstetrics claims represented 11% (1,190) of clinical claims by number but accounted for 59%of the total value of new claims; almost £4.2 billion.

In order to reduce this figure, the Maternity Incentive Scheme rewards Trusts that implement and follow each of the maternity safety actions.

Incredibly, multiple births, which are higher risk than singleton births and can be more complicated, were never mentioned explicitly in the maternity safety actions –until now!

If Trusts comply with all of the maternity safety actions, they’ll receive a 10% rebate on their CNST premium. If they don’t comply, they’ll receive funding to help them to put the actions in place in order to be able to comply. (This is much less than the 10% rebate though).

Hospitals will be financially incentivised to follow NICE multiple birth guidance.

We have been campaigning for more than seven years for Trusts to follow this guidance; now with this important policy change, our ongoing work with NHS England and our Maternity Engagement Programme, we hope more babies’ lives can be saved.

We’d like to thank NHS England for their continued support.

If you’re expecting we have an antenatal care checklist for you and find out more about twins clinics.