All Hospital Trusts are required to collect data on smoking from pregnant women in their care. This is to provide information to enable interventions to encourage pregnant women who smoke to give up, and to support the performance management process locally and nationally

Data quality has been affected in the past due to missing or incomplete data, lack of ascertainment of smoking status. These problems should be addressed following the issue of a Data Set Change Notice (DSCN) in October 2002. see http://www.nhsia.nhs.uk/dscn (ref, DSCN 50/2002)