NHSOF 5.6: Reported Child Harm Incidents from Failure to Monitor in NHS Care

Safety incidents causing harm to children due to 'failure to monitor', reported to the UK's National Reporting and Learning System. This indicator was retired in May 2015 due to an unsuitable data source and technical issues with the calculation methodology. The data was published by the Government Digital Service under an open government license.

Use Cases

• Analyze historical trends in reported safety incidents for children based on the 'failure to monitor' category.
• Study the types of care failures, such as not taking observations or delays in medical attention, mentioned in the description.
• Assess the impact of data source and methodology issues on the retirement of a national healthcare indicator.

Strengths

• Focuses on a specific, high-stakes category of clinical incidents: harm to children.
• Sourced from a national reporting system (NRLS), suggesting a standardized reporting mechanism.
• Explicit documentation of the indicator's retirement reasons provides context for data interpretation.

Limitations

• The dataset is retired and will not be updated, limiting its relevance to current systems.
• Row count and column definitions are unknown, which complicates suitability assessment.
• The description cites an unsuitable data source and technical calculation issues as reasons for retirement, indicating potential data quality concerns.

Provenance

Source

National Reporting and Learning System (NRLS), UK National Health Service.

Collection Method

Incidents reported by provider organisations to the NRLS.

Time Range

Coverage period is unspecified; data collection ended prior to May 2015.

Freshness

Retired as of May 2015; last known update was November 2014.

Geography

United Kingdom (specifically NHS providers in England).