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Child Deaths and the Child Death Overview Panel

Every child death is a tragedy for the family and the wider community. Deaths of all children, up to the age of 18 years, need to be reviewed, taking into account all available information for each death.

Information for parents, carers or families

Child Death Overview Panel (CDOP)

Information for practitioners

All Local Safeguarding Children Boards are required to have a Child Death Overview Panel (CDOP) to see whether we can learn lessons from child deaths, in order to improve the health, safety and wellbeing of other children. Through this, we hope to prevent further child deaths.

Function of CDOP

The key functions of a CDOP are to:

  • Review all child deaths, excluding those babies who are stillborn and planned terminations of pregnancy carried out within the law
  • Determine whether the death was preventable (if there were modifiable factors which may have contributed to the death)
  • Decide what, if any, actions could be taken to prevent such deaths happening in the future
  • Identify patterns or trends in local data and reporting these to the OSCB
  • Refer cases to the OSCB Chair where there is suspicion that neglect or abuse may have been a factor in the child’s death. In such cases, a Serious Case Review may be required.
  • Agree local procedures for responding to unexpected child deaths

Notifications Notifications can be made via https://www.ecdop.co.uk/OxonBucks/Live/Login

Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group have produced this short animated film with advice on co-sleeping

CDOP Annual Report 2019/20