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Public Health Scotland

Scotland’s lead national agency for improving and protecting the health and wellbeing of all of Scotland’s people.

Termination of Pregnancy in Scotland Edit

Annual update of terminations of pregnancy in Scotland.\r\n\r\nTerminations are carried out under the terms of the Abortion Act 1967 with two doctors agreeing that a termination of pregnancy is necessary under at least one of the Grounds as specified in the 1991 Regulations. There is a legal requirement on service providers to notify the Chief Medical Officer for Scotland (CMO) of all terminations under-taken in Scotland. Prior to 1st May 2022 PHS received termination data from the CMO. Since 1st May 2022 PHS has received this data direct from termination services on the Termination of Pregnancy Submissions Scotland (ToPSS) system. \r\nAn abortion can be induced (therapeutic) or spontaneous (miscarriage) and may be carried out either surgically (eg vacuum aspiration, dilation and curettage) or medically using two drugs, an antiprogesterone and a prostaglandin. This report focuses only on induced abortions. We also refer to these as terminations of pregnancy to avoid confusion with spontaneous abortions.\r\n\r\nInformation is provided by age, gestation, method of termination, NHS board of residence, deprivation area, previous termination and council area of residence.\r\n\r\nFor more information on terminations of pregnancy see the terminations section of the PHS website and the annual publication. For related topics, please see the sexual health pages. \r\n\r\nThe date of the next release can be found on our list of forthcoming publications.

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Additional Info

License UK Open Government Licence v3.0
Category Business and Economy, Council and Government, Elections / Politics, Health and Social Care, Planning and Development
Maintainer Public Health Scotland
Date Created 2020-03-17
Date Updated 2024-05-28
Original dataset link https://www.opendata.nhs.scot/dataset/termination-of-pregnancy-in-scotland