GovWire

The Department of Health and Social Care has a statutory obligation to ensure that all abortion statistics for England and Wales do not contain patient-identifiable data that relates to a living individual.

However, under the Abortion Regulations 1991, patient-level data may be released in a controlled manner for the purposes of bona fide scientific research.

This guidance sets out:

• the grounds for releasing this personal data
• how researchers can apply for the release of abortion data using the form supplied
• how the data should be used, managed and stored