Guidance

Newborn blood spot screening: standards

Screening standards for the NHS newborn blood spot (NBS) screening programme.

• From: NHS England
• Published: 1 January 2014
• Last updated: 16 April 2025
  Show all updates

  1. 16 April 2025

     Removed references to CCGs and replaced with sub-ICBs

  2. 8 October 2024

     Added clarification that publication was previously published by Public Health England.

  3. 12 March 2021

     Removal of pathway and themes diagram.

  4. 20 October 2020

     Updated Newborn blood spot screening supporting information: sections NBS-S07a, NBS-S07b and NBS-S07c.

  5. 7 October 2020

     Updated Newborn blood spot screening standards for data collected from 1 April 2021.

  6. 11 September 2020

     Updated standards S07a, S07b and S07c.

  7. 7 February 2020

     Added revised standards for data collected from 1 April 2020 onwards.

  8. 26 July 2019

     Newborn blood spot screening standards updated and reformatted.

  9. 26 January 2017

     Standards updated January 2017 for implementation from April 2017

  10. 1 January 2014

      First published.

Applies to England

Documents

Newborn blood spot screening supporting information

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Newborn blood spot screening standards valid for data collected from 1 April 2021

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Newborn blood spot screening standards valid for data collected from 1 April 2020

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Details

These documents present the national screening standards for the NHS newborn blood spot (NBS) screening programme.

The most recent standards apply to data collected from 1 April 2020. They replace previous versions.

See Population screening: our approach to screening standards for the consistent approach taken to screening standards across all 11 NHS screening programmes.