Child Death Review Report : Scottish Government Child Death Review Working Group

Existing Data collection and surveillance systems

23. The National Records of Scotland (NRS) and the Information Services Division (ISD) collect death certificate data and a variety of health-related information surrounding deaths in Scotland but there is limited clinical detail. There is on-going concern about the accuracy of death certificate data¹⁴ and no structured mechanism to feed collated data back to Health Boards. However each of Scotland's Health Boards does receive a weekly data bundle with mortality data, some premortality data on every patient who has died in that area and on every patient normally resident in that area who has died elsewhere in Scotland. The potential exists to link the child mortality data received from NRS with the child's full medical history and some social data although the facility and capacity to do this currently varies across Scotland.

24. The new UK-wide MBRRACE-UK (Mothers and Babies Reducing Risk through Audit and Confidential Enquiries across the UK) collaboration is, from April 2013, collecting data from all maternity and neonatal care units in order to investigate maternal deaths, stillbirths and infant deaths.¹⁵ Scottish data will be separately analysed in addition to the UK report and will be used to inform the new patient safety programme in maternity services - the Maternity and Children's Quality Improvement Collaborative (MCQIC)³ - and the Early Years Collaborative² as well as to inform units at a local level.