What is the Child Death Overview Panel (CDOP)?
The Child Death Overview Panel (CDOP) is a group of independent professionals and leaders from health, police and children’s social care who have a statutory responsibility to review all deaths of children from birth, up to the age of 18, who live in north east London.
If you have suffered the loss of a child you can find out more about the support available to you.
- To learn from the deaths of children to help identify ways of preventing future deaths
- To identify any improvements that can be made in the services provided to children and their families
- address the needs and welfare of any other children living in the household and the parents
- To improve the experience of bereaved families and support professionals to care for families effectively.
- Collects information about how the child died
- Reviews all the information available to understand why the child died, identify any improvements that can be made in agency response
- The CDOP shares information with the National Child Mortality Database to assist in building a national picture of child deaths across the country.
- If a child dies suddenly or unexpectedly, a Joint Agency Response meeting is held and includes representation from key agencies.
- A Child Death Review Meeting takes place once all the information surrounding the death has been collected (usually held within three months of the child's death).
Bereaved families can raise any issues with the allocated key worker or with the Lead Nurse for Child Death reviews, so that their voices can be heard at the Child Death Review Meeting. Families can also be offered a follow-up meeting to receive feedback of what was discussed.
- All child deaths are further reviewed at the Child Death Overview Panel. This is a multi agency panel that reviews all child deaths to identify patterns, improve services and prevent future deaths. Information is shared with The National Child Mortality Database (NCMD), which gathers information on all children who die across England. The aim is to learn lessons that could lead to changes to improve and save children’s lives in the future.
Contacting the Child Death Overview Panel (CDOP)
Residents of north east London can contact CDOP directly if a child has died in:
Further information can be found on your borough’s website
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