Clinical and cost-effectiveness of a maternity quality improvement programme to reduce excess bleeding and need for transfusion after childbirth: the Obstetric Bleeding Study UK (OBS UK)

Data-sharing agreement from NHS England Data Uses Register. Evidence status: source reported.

Organisation: CARDIFF UNIVERSITY
Published: 2026-10-23
Source reference: DARS-NIC-709746-N2T6T-v1.2
Jurisdiction: England
Licence: Open Government Licence v3.0, subject to NHS England terms and exclusions

Register reference: DARS-NIC-709746-N2T6T-v1.2
Applicant type: Academic
Data controllers: CARDIFF UNIVERSITY
Agreement period: 2026-10-23 to 2029-04-30
For commercial purposes (as marked in the register): No
Release files listed by NHS England: 0

Data approved

Community Services Data Set (CSDS)
Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS)
Hospital Episode Statistics Admitted Patient Care (HES APC)
Hospital Episode Statistics Critical Care (HES Critical Care)
Hospital Episode Statistics Outpatients (HES OP)

Objective, as published

Cardiff University requires access to NHS England data for the purpose of the following research project: Clinical and cost-effectiveness of a maternity quality improvement programme to reduce excess bleeding and need for transfusion after childbirth: the Obstetric Bleeding Study UK (OBS UK) The following is a summary of the aims of the research project provided by Controller: Bleeding is the most common complication of childbirth. Every year about 50,000 women in the UK lose 1L (2 pints) of blood or more. Many women develop post-traumatic stress disorder, need blood transfusion or admission to intensive care, often developing mental health issues after having their baby. Women from minority ethnic backgrounds and more socioeconomically deprived areas are also disproportionately affected. The optimum treatment of bleeding after childbirth is not known and outcomes have not improved over the last 10 years despite comprehensive national guidelines. Cardiff University have developed a care bundle for treating bleeding during childbirth in Wales called the ‘Obstetric Bleeding Strategy’ (OBS). The care bundle is: 1) Assessment of every woman’s bleeding risk, 2) Real-time measurement of blood loss after all births, 3) A consistent approach to managing excess bleeding and involving more senior clinicians, 4) Bedside tests to rapidly identify and treat abnormal blood clotting. This contrasts with current UK guidelines which recommend measuring blood loss only after excess bleeding i…

Expected benefits, as published

The findings of this research study are expected to contribute to evidence-based decision-making for policy-makers, local decision-makers such as doctors, and patients to inform best practice to improve the care, treatment and experience of health care users relevant to the subject matter of the study. The use of the data could: • help the system to better understand the health and care needs of populations. • lead to the identification or improvement of treatments or interventions, or health and care system design to improve health and care outcomes or experience. • advance understanding of regional and national trends in health and social care needs. • advance understanding of the need for, or effectiveness of, preventative health and care measures for particular populations or conditio…

Benefits reported by the applicant

OBS UK has completed its trial recruitment period (February 2024 to July 2026) across participating UK maternity units, supporting the implementation and evaluation of a care package designed to improve the management of postpartum haemorrhage (PPH). Benefits achieved to date include the collection of clinical trial data, implementation of the OBS UK care package across participating maternity units, and some progress towards establishing routine data linkage processes to support the evaluation of maternal outcomes, healthcare inequalities and NHS resource utilisation. The study's final clinical and health economic benefits have not yet been established, as provision of the approved NHS England datasets remains incomplete and the final analyses are pending. Once completed, the evaluation…

This is the applicant's own account; OpenHDI has not verified it.

Source: https://digital.nhs.uk/services/data-access-request-service-dars/data-uses-register. Captured 2026-11-05.

Limitations: Data-sharing agreement as published in NHS England's Data Uses Register. An agreement permits access; actual data releases are listed separately. Expected and yielded benefits are as reported by the applicant and have not been independently verified. Long text fields can be cut off in NHS England's spreadsheet export at Excel's 32,767-character cell limit.