In the five years since the introduction of pills-by-post, more than 54,000 women have been admitted to an NHS hospital in England for the treatment of complications arising from the use of abortion pills. Analysis of accredited official statistics published by NHS England and the Office for Health Improvement & Disparities, shows that 1-in-17 of all women self-managing their abortion at home, will subsequently be admitted for hospital treatment of an incomplete medical abortion or other complications arising from medical abortion. Women should be fully informed of these potential risks and the government should be reporting these statistics on an annual basis, but neither of these is currently happening.
NHS England data
NHSE published its latest set of data based on Hospital Episode Statistics on 25 September 2025. Data are reported for the twelve month period from 01 April to 31 March in the following year.[i]
| Twelve months 01 April to 31 March | Admissions to NHS England hospital for treatment of abortion complications |
| 2020-21 | 8,618 |
| 2021-22 | 10,078 |
| 2022-23 | 11,256 |
| 2023-24 | 12,287 |
| 2024-25 | 12,140 |
The method used to obtain these annual admissions data is outlined in this earlier post – Government under-reports abortion complications by a factor of 38x.
Non-negligible risk of treatment failure
We know from OHID published statistics that 75% of all abortions across England in 2022 were self-managed by women at home; 60% using pills-by-post and 15% self-administering the misoprostol at home after being treated with mifepristone at an abortion facility, in total 180,636 women.[ii] Based on the assumption that women having their abortion at an abortion facility would be provided all necessary treatment by that provider, we find just over 6% of women self-managing their abortion at home were subsequently admitted to an NHS hospital for essential treatment of complications arising from their use of the abortion pills, 1-in-17.[iii]
The two largest providers of pills-by-post, BPAS and MSI Reproductive Choices, both fail to fully inform women of this known failure rate; BPAS states just 2% and MSI-RC 3%. Ranbaxy (UK) Limited, the manufacturer of Medabon, the mifepristone/misoprostol combination treatment used by BPAS, states in its SmPC (summaries of product characteristics) that there is a non-negligible risk of treatment failure: [iv]
“The non-negligible risk of failure, which occurs in 4.5 to 7.8% of the cases, makes the follow-up visit mandatory in order to check that abortion is complete. The patient should be informed that surgical treatment may be required to achieve complete abortion.”
Linepharma, the manufacture of the mifepristone used by MSI-RC, includes a similar warning in its SmPC: “The non-negligible risk of failure, which occurs in up to 7.6% of the cases, makes the control visit mandatory in order to check that the expulsion is completed.”
Fully informed consent
Abortion providers, working on behalf of the NHS, must ensure that women are fully and accurately informed of all such risks as part of the mandated consenting process.
Government knows abortion complications are under-reported
The government is fully aware of the numbers of women being admitted to hospital for treatment of abortion complications but for some reason seems unwilling to report these on an annual basis. In November 2023, the Office for Health Improvement & Disparities (part of the Department of Health and Social Care) published its own analysis of the NHS hospital data on admissions for treatment of abortion complications, the numbers presented in the table above. This one-time report exposed the very significant gap in the reporting of abortion complications by providers using the Abortion Notification System. This gap and the intrinsic weakness of relying solely on ANS was clearly acknowledged by OHID in its report.[v]
Government refuses annual reporting
On 14 December 2023, in response to a written parliamentary question from Lord Jackson of Peterborough, Lord Markham (The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care) responded:
“The recent release of statistics comparing data from the Department’s Abortion Notification System and the Hospital Episode Statistics was an ad hoc official statistics in development publication, formerly known as experimental statistics. There are currently no plans to issue a similar publication annually.” [vi]
Why would the government refuse annual reporting?
Why might the government decide not to report these statistics?
- These are their own accredited official statistics
- They have used the data before for the one-time ad hoc report
- It takes just minutes to compile these statistics from the NHSE annual dataset
So, it cannot be about validity of the data or a question of available resources.
One issue that has been raised is about the completeness of these data; the HES data published by NHSE and used by the OHID in its November 2023 report, are just hospital admissions (inpatient) and do not include similar data for outpatient treatments. This issue was addressed in response to another question from Lord Jackson, answered by Lord Markham on 30 January 2024:
“The analysis does not include HES data on the treatment of women as outpatients following a termination. This is because HES data completeness is considerably higher for inpatient data than outpatient and accident and emergency data. Including the incomplete outpatient data in our analysis would have produced inaccurate results for this population.” [vii]
This should not be of great concern given the most likely care pathway will be for a GP to recommend that the woman presents at her local A&E and the medical team there will follow a best practice guideline to admit the woman to a specialist ward for any necessary treatment, in which event her case would then be recorded as an admission in HES. Any cases that are missed from the HES admissions data will simply mean that the overall total of women being treated and the rate of abortion complications will be slightly under-reported; it is worth noting that in 2022 the total reported from HES was 38 times greater than the only other official report, which uses the Abortion Notification System, 11,256, compared to just 300.[viii]
Complications from Abortions (Annual Report) Bill [HL]
Perhaps it was this very obvious difference in official reporting that encouraged Lord Moylan, in September 2024, to table a Private Members’ Bill in the House of Lords, requiring the Secretary of State to publish an annual report on complications from abortions in England and mandating that such reports would include data recorded in both the Abortion Notification System and the Hospital Episode Statistics.[ix] The Bill was debated during Committee stage on 6 June 2025 and Lord Moylan is now waiting for a date to be scheduled for the Report stage.
Compliance check by the Office for Statistics Regulation
As a result of the various discussions of Lord Moylan’s Bill, Mr Humpherson, Director General for the Office for Statistics Regulation, has agreed with the DHSC to conduct a compliance check of the abortion complications statistics. This seems promising, as Lord Moylan said in the debate on 06 June 2025: [x]
“A great deal of what the Bill seeks to achieve is likely now to be pursued by the Office for Statistics Regulation in consultation with the DHSC. Since it is very unlikely that any compliance check would consider that the current system was successfully capturing complications arising from abortion, I am therefore very pleased with what Mr Humpherson said.” [xi]
Though Lord Moylan notes some concern that the promised compliance check would not be started until the first quarter of 2026-27.
What do we want?
Surely it is time that abortion providers should be held to account by the regulators to ensure women are given accurate information about the risk of treatment failure and complications, including the need for hospital admission; deliberately minimising and misleading women about the reality of these risks is no longer acceptable. The government should encourage Humpherson to bring forward the proposed compliance review by the OSR and take up Lord Moylan’s request for annual reporting of all abortion complications, including those treated by hospital admission.
[i] Hospital admitted patient care activity – NHS England Digital. (n.d.). NHS England Digital. https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/hospital-admitted-patient-care-activity
[ii] Tab ‘T2_Eng’ of file ‘Abortions statistics 2022: additional data tables’ accessed from – Abortion statistics for England and Wales: 2022. (2025, April 9). GOV.UK. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/abortion-statistics-for-england-and-wales-2022
[iii] 11,256 admissions reported by NHSE and 180,636 women self-managing a medical abortion at home, reported by OHID; (11256/180636 *100 = 6.2%)
[iv] Duffy, K. (2023, December 22). The Abortion Pill is not always effective. Percuity. https://percuity.blog/2023/04/10/the-abortion-pill-is-not-always-effective/
[v] Complications from abortions in England: comparison of Abortion Notification System data and Hospital Episode Statistics 2017 to 2021. (2023, November 23). GOV.UK. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/complications-from-abortions-in-england-2017-to-2021/complications-from-abortions-in-england-comparison-of-abortion-notification-system-data-and-hospital-episode-statistics-2017-to-2021
[vi] Duffy, K. (2023, December 20). Government has no plans to report on all abortion complications. Percuity. https://percuity.blog/2023/12/20/government-has-no-plans-to-report-on-all-abortion-complications/
[vii] Written questions and answers – Written questions, answers and statements – UK Parliament. (2024, January 23). https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2024-01-23/hl1859
[viii] Duffy, K. (2025, September 12). Government under-reports abortion complications by a factor of 38x. Percuity. https://percuity.blog/2025/01/14/government-under-reports-abortion-complications-by-a-factor-of-38x/
[ix] Complications from Abortions (Annual Report) Bill [HL] – Parliamentary Bills – UK Parliament. (n.d.). https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3750
[x] Complications from Abortions (Annual Report) Bill [HL] – Hansard – UK Parliament. (2025, June 6). https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2025-06-06/debates/4158E44D-2B8E-4C51-A3B2-DA96C4CCD4BA/ComplicationsFromAbortions(AnnualReport)Bill(HL)
[xi] Complications from Abortions (Annual Report) Bill [HL] – Hansard – UK Parliament. (2025, June 6). https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2025-06-06/debates/4158E44D-2B8E-4C51-A3B2-DA96C4CCD4BA/ComplicationsFromAbortions(AnnualReport)Bill(HL)#contribution-105BEDD2-796F-4D99-9800-79BF96AB7D34
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