Health bosses to analyse records of child deaths with world-first database

By Ryan Hooper1st April 2019News EnglandBereavment, Childrens Services, Data, News England

The NHS is to launch the world’s first database charting child deaths in an effort to stop under-18s dying from preventable causes.

The National Child Mortality Database (NCMD), funded by NHS England and starting on Monday, will record the circumstances of all child deaths across the country, as well as the impact of factors like ethnicity, economic background and other environmental issues.

The database will allow detailed analysis of groupings of child deaths, such as those from asthma, to enable links between mortality and care – as well as making sure environmental factors like air pollution and smoking at home are properly understood and tackled.

Dr Jacqueline Cornish, NHS England’s national clinical director for children, young people and transition to adulthood, said: “Every child’s death is devastating and the impact on parents lasts a lifetime, and by learning from each personal tragedy we can help to prevent more families from suffering.

“As we set out a programme of improvements to young people’s care in the NHS through our Long Term Plan, this new National Child Mortality Database – the first of its kind anywhere in the world to collect such detailed data – is a major boost and will give us the best possible insight into avoidable factors in a child’s death.

“This means we can make improvements not only in frontline patient care, but also with our partners in education, social care, other agencies and of course families themselves, so we can achieve the best possible outcomes for children and young people.

“Pollution inside or outside the home, has a significant impact on everyone’s health, and this new national database will allow for a detailed understanding of factors that impact children’s safety and health, like parents smoking in the home, as well as helping to map areas where child death and levels of air pollution are both high.”

The database, commissioned by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership and led by the University of Bristol, will track patterns of death across the country, and identify ways to intervene in common factors including reducing the impact of lifestyle and environmental factors like pollution and economic background.

It will also publish reports of information from all child deaths across England, and develop guidance for health and other public organisation leaders to improve care or take preventive action.

Professor Russell Viner, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said: “This insight is desperately needed and we as child health experts look forward to seeing the positive impact this tool will make in this country.”