News

A spate of child abuse cases in Suffolk, including three child deaths, has prompted new child protection guidance in the region.

Interim guidance covering the NHS eastern region was issued last week to ensure a consistent approach to the commissioning of Working Together part eight reviews, under which children's deaths or serious injuries are investigated if there is a suspicion of child abuse.

Between April 2000 and February 2001, eight part eight reviews were triggered in Suffolk. None of the children who died or were seriously injured were on the child protection register, but five were known to either social care or health services. The Social Services Inspectorate is monitoring the department's response.

Peter Tempest, Suffolk's acting director of social care services, said: "It is right the SSI focuses on how we respond to the spate of part eights that came through in early 2000. We are being scrutinised quite rightly and in the right way."

Tempest said changes had been made following the reviews, three of which would be submitted to Suffolk area child protection committee this month.

These included faster and improved communication between agencies to ensure midwives, health visitors, GPs and teachers contact social care services immediately they have concerns.

Agencies have also reinforced measures to detect the early warning signs of abuse across agencies and in adult social care services. Access to the child protection register has been made easier and improvements to joint investigations with the police and to single agency training have been instigated.

Tempest said the area child protection committee took a "far more broad-brush approach to learning from serious cases of child abuse" and often commissioned part eight reviews where others would not.

The interim guidance for the whole of the NHS eastern region mirrored Suffolk's approach, Tempest said.

Suffolk social services department accepted that in some of the five cases known to it "suffering may have been avoided" if it had acted differently.

Suffolk area child protection committee has also acknowledged there were delays in completing the part eight reviews and that the new process it has set up should ensure the SSI's four-month timescale for completing reviews is met.

- Durham Area Child Protection Committee is due to publish a part eight review this week into allegations of extreme physical abuse at Windlestone Hall special school in Rushyford Newton Aycliffe.