How to protect general practice from child protection.

摘要

The tragic deaths of Victoria Climbie and Peter Connelly (Baby P) and the ensuing moral panics have driven the world of child protection into a spiral of defensiveness, posturing, and bureaucratic box-ticking that is now threatening to engulf general practice — to the detriment of both doctors and any children who might need safeguarding. Over the past month I have received requests from local child protection authorities for reports on 18 children. These follow a standard form, opening with a request for 'specific medical history' and proceeding to solicit further information under a number of headings: the 'developmental needs of the child' (with five subheadings); the 'capacities of parent/carer to respond appropriately to those needs' (six categories); the 'impact of family and environmental factors on parenting capacity and the child' (six categories); and, finally, 'any other relevant information'.