Child death reviews: forms for reporting child deaths
Source: gov.uk (2025-06-18)

Forms to help child death overview panels (CDOPs) assess the causes of a child’s death as part of the child death review process.

Child death review partners (local authorities and integrated care boards) must make arrangements:
- to review all deaths of children normally resident in the local area and, as indicated, of any non-resident children who have died in their area. This should be done through a Child Death Overview Panel (CDOP)
- for the analysis of information from all deaths by the National Child Mortality Database (NCMD) (https://www.ncmd.info/)
See Child death review: statutory and operational guidance (England) (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/child-death-review-statutory-and-operational-guidance-england).

We recommend that CDOP offices use the forms on this page to collect information for the child death review (CDR) process. This information can then be submitted to their CDOP to support the review.

The completed forms will help CDOPs:
- collect information regarding the child deaths in their area in a consistent way
- assess the causes of child deaths in their area
- see if there are significant similarities between child deaths in their area and recommend how to prevent similar deaths in future
For every child death, the following actions should be taken:
- A notification form should be completed and sent to the CDOP office immediately after a child dies.
- The CDOP office should ensure the notification is sent to the NCMD within 24 hours of receipt of the form. For CDOPs using the eCDOP case management tool, this process will happen automatically. For others, the details should be entered onto the NCMD manually.
- Information should be gathered from all agencies that were involved with the child during their life or after death through completion of a reporting form.
- The CDOP office should identify the most appropriate agency to complete the relevant supplementary reporting forms, depending on the cause of death, and request for that agency to complete the relevant forms.
- When completed, reporting forms and supplementary reporting forms should be returned to the CDOP office, and the information on them entered onto the NCMD. Information should be entered either using the eCDOP case management tool (see a list of contacts (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/child-death-overview-panels-contacts) who can provide information on the management tool) or manually for those not using the tool.
- A local child death review meeting should be convened, to include all professionals that were involved with the child during their life or after death, and at this meeting a draft child death analysis form should be completed.
- Anonymous versions of the completed forms (notification, reporting, supplementary reporting and draft analysis forms) should be presented to the CDOP, so an independent review of the death can be conducted. The draft analysis form should be finalised at this meeting.
- Following review by the CDOP, the details on the final analysis form should be entered onto the NCMD.
You can find more information on the CDOPs’ responsibilities regarding child death notifications in the guidance Working together to safeguard children (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/working-together-to-safeguard-children--2).