Child Health

NCEPOD has been commissioned by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) to undertake the Child Health Clinical Outcome Review Programme on behalf of NHS England, DHSSPS Northern Ireland, the Welsh Government, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.

The Child Health programme is one of four Clinical Outcome Review Programmes which are designed to help assess the quality of healthcare, and stimulate improvement in safety and effectiveness by systematically enabling clinicians, managers and policy makers to learn from adverse events and other relevant data. The other programmes are;

• The Medical & Surgical Programme – also run by NCEPOD
• The Mental Health Programme
• The Maternal Newborn and Infant Programme

This work programme has built on the work of previous child health confidential enquiries and clinical outcome review programmes. The final child health enquiry report ‘Why Children Die’ was published by CMACE in 2008. This programme collected and analysed a core set of mortality data on children from 1- 18 years.

The Child Health Clinical Outcome Review Programme was recommissioned in 2010 and in 2011 the contract was awarded to The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. They subsequently published two reports in 2013 under their Child Health Review (CHR-UK) project;

1. Overview of child deaths in the four UK countries; A retrospective epidemiological review of all-cause mortality
2. Coordinating Epilepsy Care; a UK wide review of healthcare in cases of mortality and prolonged seizures in children and young people with epilepsies.

Since becoming the provider of this programme in 2014, there have been focused reports on Chronic Neurodisability, Young People’s Mental Health and Long-Term Ventilation.

A protocol to describe the key features of the Child Health Clinical Outcome Review Programme can be found here: Understanding Practice in Clinical Outcome Review Programmes tool (UPCORP) - guidance and checklist