Child Death Overview Panel (CDOP)

If a child is in immediate danger please call 999

Child Death Overview Panel (CDOP)

The North Central London Child Death Overview Panel (NCL CDOP) extends its deepest sympathies to bereaved families following their unimaginably difficult loss.

We hope that our panel will provide support for those who have suffered the loss of a child and help us improve safeguarding.

The panel review the deaths of under 18 residents in the North Central London (NCL) boroughs of Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Haringey and Islington, to help us to learn lessons from these deaths and to help identify ways to prevent future tragedies.

The panel meets after all information about the death has been gathered. It is attended by public health, the police and social services. We look at all child deaths in NCL individually and seek to learn from each of them.

All the deaths are anonymised, and any lessons learned are shared with practitioners and parents both locally and nationally.

We welcome the views of parents/carers and you should contact the panel chair, Susan Otiti to share any issues you think might be relevant, or that might help us learn lessons for the future.

To contact the NCL CDOP, please email Huda.charif@nhs.net. You can find out more about how the child death process works on the NCL webpage.  

Notification of a child death to the CDOP for London Borough of Barnet

Any agency/professional should make a notification to our e-CDOP if they become aware of:

• a child death occurring in borough of Barnet
• a death of a child normally resident in this borough but occurring elsewhere.

Following notification of the death of a child, the coordinator for CDOP will establish which agencies and professionals have been involved with the child or family either prior to or at the time of death by contacting the lead practitioner in each agency.

Relevant practitioners will then be sent a link to complete the e-CDOP Form B, and practitioners are kindly requested to complete as much information as possible about the child and family, but we recognise that it may not always be possible to complete all fields.

Professionals receiving Form B for completion should retrieve their agency’s case records for the child or other family members and complete the form with any information known to them or their organisation (usually within 10 to 14 days).

If you cannot access the link to the e-CDOP above, please notify the Child Death Overview Panel via our Single Point of Contact, Terri Graham (terri.graham@barnet.gov.uk). 

Joint Agency Response Meetings

Following an unexpected child death, our Designated Doctor for CDOP will convene a meeting of key professionals in order to:

• ensure support for the bereaved family members, as the death of a child will always be a traumatic loss - the more so if the death was unexpected
• identify and safeguard any other children in the household or affected by the death
• respond quickly to the unexpected death of a child
• make immediate enquiries into and evaluate the reasons for and circumstances of the death, in agreement with the coroner when required
• enquire into and constructively challenge how each organisation discharged their responsibilities when a child has died unexpectedly (liaising with those who have ongoing responsibilities for other family members), and whether there are any lessons to be learnt
• collate information in a standard format using the CDOP Form B
• co-operate appropriately post death, maintaining contact at regular intervals with family members and other professionals who have ongoing responsibilities to the family, to ensure that they are appropriately informed (unless such sharing of information would place other children at risk of harm or jeopardise police investigations)
• consider media issues and the need to alert and liaise with the appropriate agencies
• provide bereavement support as needed, for any other children, family members or members of staff who may be affected by the child's death
• determine if abuse or neglect appear to be possible causes of death, children's social care and the police should be informed and a referral to Learning and Thematic Review Group considered.