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England and Wales began collecting confidential data from maternal deaths in 1952 and published reports every 3 years from 1957 until 2008. Similar enquiries began in Northern Ireland in 1956 and in Scotland in 1965. Since 1985, the Confidential Enquiries covered the whole of the UK and, in 2003, it became part of the Confidential Enquiry into Maternal and Child Health (CEMACH), subsequently the Centre for Maternal and Child Enquiries (CMACE), and since 2012 (analysing deaths from 2009 onwards) it is part of the programme of MBRRACE‐UK (Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audit and Confidential Enquiries across the UK), a collaboration based in the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit in Oxford. Cases from the Republic of Ireland are now included as well.

From the outset, confidentiality was recognised to be essential if staff were to give an honest account of events without fear of litigation or disciplinary action. In this, and in other essentials, the approach initiated in the 1950s is still used today. The process summarised here applies to England, but is similar in the other UK countries.