Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of introducing a screening programme for group B Streptococcus in pregnant women.

On all aspects of population and targeted screening, Ministers are advised by the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC).

The UK NSC last reviewed the evidence to screen for group B streptococcus (GBS) at 35 to 37 weeks of pregnancy in 2017 and concluded that there was insufficient evidence to demonstrate that the benefits of screening would outweigh the harms.

This was because the test currently available cannot accurately distinguish between those mothers whose babies are at risk and those who are not.

This means that many women would unnecessarily be offered antibiotics during labour, with the balance of harms and benefits from this approach being unknown.

The National Institute for Health Research funded a large-scale clinical trial to compare universal screening for GBS against the usual risk factor-based strategy.

Recruitment to the trial ended in March 2024 and a report is expected in early 2026. The UK NSC Secretariat is in contact with the researchers. The UK NSC will review its recommendation considering the evidence from the trial, after the report is presented.