This guidance sets out the full process that follows the death of a child who is normally resident in England. It builds on the statutory requirements set out in Working together to safeguard children and clarifies how individual professionals and organisations across all sectors involved in the child death review should contribute to reviews.
The guidance sets out the process in order to:
- improve the experience of bereaved families, and professionals involved in caring for children
- ensure that information from the child death review process is systematically captured in every case to enable learning to prevent future deaths
NHS England will issue guidance for the bereaved, ‘When a child dies: a guide for parents and carers’, setting out the steps that follow the death of a child.
The collation and sharing of the learning from reviews will be managed initially by NHS Digital and then by the National Child Mortality Database when it becomes operational on 1 April 2019. It will be handled through the use of standardised forms. Guidance on the transitional arrangements has been published.