01.11.13
Child mortality data may no longer be published under ONS proposals
The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) has raised concerns over ONS proposals to discontinue publishing data on child mortality.
A consultation, which closed yesterday, includes proposals to stop publishing the number of stillbirths, neonatal deaths, unexplained infant deaths and deaths from injuries and suicides.
In a letter printed in the Guardian, the RCPCH and children’s charities including the NSPCC, the NCB and the Lullaby Trust, called for the ONS to continue making this data available.
The charities said: “We are gravely concerned at the possibility that annual data on child mortality rates in the UK, including the number of stillbirths, neonatal deaths, unexplained infant deaths and deaths from injuries and suicide, will no longer be published. This poses a real threat to improving the health of our children, particularly given that the UK has one of the worst child-mortality rates in Europe.
“Without this data we won't know why children in the UK are dying. If we don't know that, we can't develop interventions to prevent these deaths. And without annual data, we won't know whether any steps that are being taken are having a positive effect. The cost of producing each data set is said to be between £10,000 and £50,000 a year; a small price to pay for an invaluable measure of child health.”
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