Child Death Review Database development project

The child death review database project is designed to specify the key elements required to develop a ‘national’ database for England and Scotland to collect information from the Child Death Reviews which are carried out in England by Child Death Overview Panels (CDOPs) and from the Child Death Review process which is currently being developed in Scotland.

The 18-month project is delivered by the University of Oxford, The National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit (NPEU) & University of Leicester.

An extensive consultation with stakeholders across England and Scotland has been undertaken to inform the development of a specification for a sustainable, national information system which can support on-going information management requirements and facilitate the collection, analysis, interpretation and benchmarked reporting of data at a national and local level. Commissioning of the national database is now underway and development of the database is expected to be completed by the end of 2017.

Governance to the project will be provided through a subcommittee of the Child Health Clinical Outcome Review Programme Independent Advisory Group and will include representatives from NHS England and the Health Department of the Scottish Government, Child Death Overview Panels, clinicians, the Department of Health, the Department of Education and Public Health England.