Carbon Monoxide readings      

FOI REFERENCE: 24011   

FOI TITLE: Carbon Monoxide readings      

FOI DATE: 5^th April 2024  

Request:

Request of information under the FOI Act, requesting the Carbon Monoxide breath readings taken for the last 5 years taken on site at Worcester.

Response:

Carbon monoxide testing during pregnancy is carried out routinely for all pregnant people at the booking appointment, and at the 36-week antenatal follow up appointment. Anyone who identifies as a smoker should have CO testing taken at every contact. The Trust offer a stop smoking service which is free to all pregnant smokers and any of their household members who also smoke.

CO testing was completely paused during 2020 due to the pandemic and was slowly re-introduced in 2021.

The Trust has a digital records system where we record all data that is required to be reported to NHS digital and NHS England which was introduced in November of 2020 and allows for data to be reported. Unfortunately, the data cannot be broken down into site specific areas and will include all CO tests that were conducted at the 36-week appointment anywhere across the Trust including those that may have been conducted in the home. This will include anyone tested on site at Kidderminster, Redditch and also Worcester.

The following data has been collated for the years from 2020 to date.

2024 data is the first quarter January – March.

Year	CO tested at 36 weeks	As a % of pregnancies	Co level >4ppm no.	As a % of those tested	Number identifying as smokers	Smoking as an overall % of pregnancies
2020	CO testing paused due to Covid 19
2021	874	22%	155	17%	745	11.40%
2022	2783	63%	272	9.80%	641	11%
2023	3436	80%	300	8.70%	539	9.90%
2024 YTD	904	84%	66	7.30%	123	8.90%

A CO reading up to 10ppm can be due to a number of environmental factors:

Car exhaust fumes due to traffic

Public transport fumes

Farm equipment

Faulty home appliances

Second-hand smoke

The midwife should be advising on all of these factors, and arranging to repeat a CO reading if we get one that is not consistent with smoking status. We also have a Trust guideline that details how to

	Number blowing >4ppm	Recorded as non-smokers
2020	N/A	N/A
2021	155	27
2022	272	63
2023	300	75
2024 YTD	66	22