The guidance has been developed by the NHS Fetal Anomaly Screening
Programme (FASP) to maintain and improve the quality of the screening
and testing process.
It is also hoped it will enable women to exercise informed choices about any decisions they make.
The four new standards in the guidance state:
All hospital trusts must have a care pathway to
provide evidence that the UK National Screening Committee and NHS FASP
information booklet and leaflets are being used.
All pregnant women must be offered up-to-date information on fetal anomaly screening, based on the current available evidence.
All eligible pregnant women must be offered testing
and this offer must be recorded in the woman’s notes and/or hospital IT
system at the booking appointment.
All decisions about the test itself must be recorded in the woman’s hand held notes and/or in the hospital information system.
The NHS FASP recommends the National Screening Committee leaflet
Screening Tests for you and your baby, as a source of up-to-date information for mothers-to-be.
The standards are available in full
here and will be distributed to all ultrasound departments in England later this month (November 2011).
