National child death database to launch next year
Nina Jacobs
Wednesday, October 17, 2018
A new national database recording all child deaths is to launch in April next year in a bid to improve information sharing which will help prevent future deaths, the government has announced.
Details of the National Child Mortality Database (NCMD) were unveiled in joint statutory guidance released by the Department of Health and the Department for Education for clinical commissioning groups and local authorities as child death review partners.
The government departments said the collation and sharing of information from child death reviews will be managed initially by NHS Digital and then by the new database when it becomes operational on 1 April.
The NCMD, funded for four years and commissioned by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership on behalf of NHS England, will work closely with child death overview panels (CDOPs) which review all child deaths in England.
NHS England is reported to be spending £1.5m on the new system which will collect data on all deaths in children in England aged from birth to 18.
The information will then be analysed by the Child Mortality Data Unit at the University of Bristol to help "inform strategic improvements in health and social care for children".
Dr Karen Luyt, the NCMD programme lead at the University of Bristol, said collating national data to be analysed centrally would provide additional learning beyond what could be achieved within local systems.
"It will mean patterns and trends in children's death can be identified and action taken to help prevent the risk of future deaths," she said.
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The announcement marks the first official confirmation of the database more than five years after a government-commissioned report called for it to be established.
A study carried out in 2013 found that CDOPs were being hampered by a lack of national data which could help spot trends and prevent further deaths.
Former president of the Association of Directors of Children's Services Alan Wood backed the idea in his review of local safeguarding arrangements published in 2016.
He said the introduction of a national database "has to be a priority for implementation" to "assist the collection of local information" and enable national analysis of child deaths.
"Currently the gathering of data on child deaths and the analysis of them is incomplete and inconsistent," the report warned.
"This means there is a gap in our knowledge and we are not sufficiently extracting learning from the data and intelligence we have available."
The launch of the NCMD forms part of an overhaul of local safeguarding arrangements announced by the government earlier this year.
A 15-month transition period which began in June to replace outgoing local safeguarding children boards with new arrangements.
