How Long Must You Keep Obstetric and Gynaecology Records?

Obstetric and maternity records are retained for 25 years after the birth of the last child, against 8 years for ordinary adult records. The difference is not clinical caution. It is the Limitation Act, and once you understand the mechanism the number stops looking arbitrary.

There is a second point that almost nobody makes: the NHS retention schedule everybody quotes binds NHS bodies, not private practitioners. If you have never held an NHS contract, it is not your schedule. It is still the best answer available, for reasons worth understanding.

What are the actual periods?

The NHS Records Management Code of Practice sets the reference standard.

Record type	England, Wales, NI	Scotland
Obstetric and maternity	25 years after the birth of the last child	25 years, or until the woman reaches 50, whichever is longer
Adult health records	8 years after conclusion of treatment or death	6 years from last entry, or 3 years after death
Children and young people	Until the 25th birthday, or 26th if the young person was 17 when treatment concluded	As above

Gynaecology records for an adult woman with no obstetric element fall under the ordinary adult period. The 25-year figure attaches to the obstetric side.

Why 25 years?

Because of who might sue, and when they are allowed to.

The Limitation Act 1980 sets the deadlines for bringing claims. Section 28 deals with claimants who were under a disability when the cause of action accrued, and it changes everything for maternity records.

A child is under a disability until they turn 18. Under section 28, time does not start running until the disability ends. Section 28(6) then gives personal injury claimants three years from ceasing to be under a disability.

So a child injured at birth has until roughly their 21st birthday to bring a claim. Add the time it takes for proceedings to run, and 25 years is not a generous margin. It is close to the minimum period that keeps the records available for the whole window in which they might be needed.

There is a further category. For a person who never regains capacity, time under section 28 never starts running at all. Those records may be needed indefinitely, which is why the schedule is a floor rather than a ceiling.

Does the NHS schedule apply to private practice?

Not directly, and this is the gap in every other article on the subject.

The NHS Records Management Code binds NHS organisations. A wholly private consultant has never been within its scope.

What binds you is UK GDPR storage limitation: personal data must not be kept longer than is necessary for the purpose it was processed for, and you must be able to justify the period you have chosen. The law gives you a principle and asks you to apply it.

Which means the NHS schedule is not your obligation. It is the best available evidence of what a considered, expert assessment of necessity looks like in exactly this clinical area. If you are ever asked why you kept maternity records for 25 years, "I follow the NHS standard, which reflects the limitation position for birth injury claims" is a complete answer. "It seemed about right" is not.

So adopt it, and say in your retention policy that you have adopted it and why.

What does a policy need to contain?

Five things, on one page.

The periods, stated separately for obstetric, gynaecological and paediatric records
When the clock starts. Birth of the last child for maternity; conclusion of treatment for gynaecology
What is covered. Notes, correspondence, imaging, results, consent forms and any recordings
How destruction happens, securely, with a record that it happened
Who is responsible if you are not there, which for a solo consultant means naming someone

That last point matters more in this specialty than most. A consultant who retires at 60 may hold records that must survive until 2050. Retirement does not end the obligation; it transfers it, and the transfer needs arranging rather than assuming.

The practical problem nobody solves

Almost nobody executes a retention policy. Nobody diaries deleting a file 25 years out. Archives become indefinite retention by default because nothing prompts the deletion, and indefinite retention is itself a breach of storage limitation.

This is the one part of the process software can genuinely carry. A system that records a last-contact date against every patient and applies a retention rule turns the hardest part into a list you review. Atlacare holds country-aware retention configuration and retention-aware erasure, so a deletion request is handled against the rule rather than against a guess, and records that have passed the retention window surface for review rather than sitting quietly.

One caution that matters in this specialty. A system-wide retention period is normally set to the ordinary adult figure, so a maternity record will reach that date long before its 25 years are up. In Atlacare you place a hold on those patients so they are excluded from the review list and from erasure. Whatever system you use, check that it can tell an obstetric record from an ordinary one, or mark it so.

What software cannot do is choose the period. That is a professional judgement, and writing down the reasoning is what makes it defensible.

Interaction with erasure requests

Worth knowing before somebody asks.

A patient requesting erasure under Article 17 does not automatically get it. Where you have a legal obligation to retain, or where the records are needed for the establishment or defence of legal claims, those exemptions apply.

In this specialty the defence-of-claims point is unusually strong, precisely because of section 28. A maternity record is the evidence in a claim that may not be brought for two decades. Destroying it on request would leave you unable to defend yourself.

Explain that to the patient rather than simply refusing. Most people accept it readily once they understand the records exist partly to protect them.

Where to start

If you have no written retention policy, that is the first job, and it takes an afternoon. Adopt the NHS periods, record that you have adopted them and why, tell patients in your privacy notice, and put something in place that actually surfaces records when their date arrives.

Our guide to CQC registration for private gynaecology covers the other compliance question most private gynaecologists have not fully worked through, and the two tend to arrive together when a practice is being set up properly for the first time.

This is general information about retention obligations, not legal advice. Retention periods interact with limitation law and the circumstances of individual patients. Take advice where proceedings are foreseeable, and check the current NHS Records Management Code before adopting any schedule.

Sources: Limitation Act 1980, section 28 · NHS Records Management Code of Practice · BMA, retention of health records