The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence's (NICE) guideline on antenatal care states that
“pregnant women should not be offered routine antenatal screening for group B streptococcus (GBS) because evidence of its clinical effectiveness and cost effectiveness remains uncertain”.
This is consistent with advice from the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC) and the Royal college of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG).
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 NSC GBS coordinating group. NICE are currently considering this topic as part of a wider assessment of the approach they should adopt in assessing proposals for appraisals of diagnostics.