What is NIMATS? The Northern Ireland Maternity System (NIMATs) contains a range of demographic and clinical information on mothers and infants. It captures data relating to the current complete maternity process, but also contains details about the mother’s past medical and obstetric history. It is a key source for data on birth numbers, interventions, maternal risk factors, birth weights, maternal smoking, BMI and breastfeeding on discharge.

Where is it used? NIMATs is available in all five Health Trust areas across Northern Ireland, within each hospital providing maternity services (11 hospitals in total). Access to NIMATS is also available to midwives/clerical staff in various community clinics across NI to allow for booking appointments to be recorded.

Where does it get its data from? The main source of data for NIMATS (excluding data input) is the Patient Administration System (PAS). PAS provides mainly demographic details which will have been recorded when the mother attended for her booking appointment and also data recorded on admission to hospital for delivery. Some laboratory results data is also provided by the NI Blood Transfusion Service.