UK Preconception Partnership

What we do

The work of the Partnership covers a broad range of activities including engaging with policymakers to support policies related to women's preconception health, exploring research gaps and generating evidence through bottom-up strategies and public engagement, and harnessing routine data sources to build a robust system to monitor the state of preconception health in the UK.

Since its origin in 2018, the Partnership has:

  • outlined an annual reporting system to describe and monitor preconception health nationally;
  • systematically reviewed suitable indicators of preconception health using metrics from multiple routine data sources;
  • piloted use of the London Measure of Unplanned Pregnancy (LMUP) in maternity care to identify women at higher risk of adverse pregnancy outcome, and target antenatal care resources;
  • illustrated quantitatively the implications of providing preconception care in a typical general practice setting;
  • completed a scoping review for Public Health England (now Office for Health Improvement and Disparities) of community models of preconception care (2021);
  • supported the development of a new training package in preconception care for health visitors;
  • explored, through extensive patient and public involvement, language relating to preconception health (a term that means little to most people) and co-developed ideas for new models of care;
  • influenced public health policy through:

- the adoption of new definitions of the preconception period in Public Health England’s report ‘Making the Case for Preconception Care’

- incorporation of preconception health into the Children’s Alliance report to reverse the serious decline in the health and wellbeing of our children and young people

- development and inclusion of new ‘health in pregnancy’ indicators for the Public Health Outcomes Framework (statutory guidance for local authorities), including folic acid, smoking and maternal obesity