What is being done to ensure that all pregnant women are given a second trimester anomaly scan.

The Scottish Government is workingclosely with NHS boards to develop the pregnancy screening programme to includethe anomaly scan as a matter of routine right across the country. The introductionof fetal anomaly scans however has significant implications for the health servicein terms of resources, workforce, equipment and training.
A Pregnancy Screening PolicyImplementation Group has started work and had a preliminary meeting on 17 January 2008 to takethis work forward. We are hoping to advise boards of resource allocation and likelytimescales for introduction and roll out of the amendments to the pregnancy screeningprogramme in the spring.