Linkage of Maternity Hospital Episode Statistics data to birth registration and notification records for births in England 2005-2014: methods. A population-based birth cohort study

INTRODUCTION: Maternity Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data for 2005–2014 were linked to birth registration and birth notification data (previously known as NHS Numbers for Babies or NN4B) to bring together some key demographic and clinical data items not otherwise available at a national level. The linkage algorithm that was previously used to link 2005–2007 data was revised to improve the linkage rate and reduce the number of duplicate HES records. METHODS: Birth registration and notification linked records from the Office for National Statistics (‘ONS birth records’) were further linked to Maternity HES delivery and birth records using the NHS Number and other direct identifiers if the NHS Number was missing. RESULTS: For the period 2005–2014, over 94% of birth registration and notification records were correctly linked to HES delivery records. Two per cent of the ONS birth records were incorrectly linked to the HES delivery record and 5% of ONS birth records were linked to more than one HES delivery record. Therefore, a considerable amount of time was spent in quality assuring these files. CONCLUSION: The linkage rate for birth registration and notification records to HES delivery records steadily improved from 2005 to 2014 due to improvement in the quality and completeness of patient identifiers in both HES and birth notification data.