To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment she has made of the danger to pregnant women posed by infection with group B streptococcus; what plans she has (a) to introduce a national screening programme for pregnant women and (b) to raise awareness of infection among (i) women and (ii) health care professionals; what assessment she has made of the indicative reliability of (A) a high vaginal swab and (B) the enrichment culture method test; and what plans she has to make the enrichment culture method test available to women free at the point of demand on the NHS. (138505)

The current position is that routine screening of group B streptococcus (GBS) should not be offered to all pregnant women. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) guideline on antenatal care states that pregnant women should not be offered routine antenatal screening for GBS because evidence of its clinical effectiveness and cost effectiveness remains uncertain.

Information for women is now in the Pregnancy Book and on NHS Direct Online. The Royal College of Gynaecologists and the charity Group B Strep Support (GBSS) also publish information for women. The UK National Screening Committee has commissioned an electronic learning resource for health care professionals from the National Electronic Library for Health to promote the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists’ guideline on “Prevention of Early Onset Neonatal Group B Streptococcal Disease”.

A proposal for NICE to appraise the use of an enriched culture medium for the detection of GBS carriage in a subset of pregnant women with clinical risk factors has been submitted on behalf of the UK National Screening Committee’s GBS Co-ordinating Group and is under consideration.