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How low can cost cutting sink?

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Aka Thu 31-Oct-13 09:11:49

This letter appeared in yesterday's Guardian. It appears that the Government intends to stop the publication of important statistics including child death rates.

We are gravely concerned at the possibility that annual data on child mortality rates in the UK, including the number of stillbirths, neonatal deaths, unexplained infant deaths and deaths from injuries and suicide, will no longer be published. This poses a real threat to improving the health of our children, particularly given that the UK has one of the worst child-mortality rates in Europe. Without this data we won't know why children in the UK are dying. If we don't know that, we can't develop interventions to prevent these deaths. And without annual data, we won't know whether any steps that are being taken are having a positive effect. The cost of producing each data set is said to be between £10,000 and £50,000 a year; a small price to pay for an invaluable measure of child health.

Dr Hilary Cass, President, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, Francine Bates, Chief executive, The Lullaby Trust, Peter Wanless, Chief executive, NSPCC, Dr Hilary Emery, Chief executive, National Children's Bureau, Jane van Zyl, Deputy chief executive, Sands, Andy Cole, Chief executive, Bliss, Katrina Phillips, Chief executive, Child Accident Prevention Trust

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Iam64 Thu 31-Oct-13 20:19:45

Aka, I didn't see the Guardian yesterday so many thanks for this post. I imagine there will be e petitions opposing this shocking proposal.

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FlicketyB Thu 31-Oct-13 21:25:08

A question of avoiding publishing embarrassing figures. This is appalling.

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Aka Thu 31-Oct-13 22:08:55

The last day for petitioning was today. I think they're trying to slip this one in under the radar. Surprisined the media haven't made more of a fuss, but then only two GNetters have responded so perhaps it's easy to miss.

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Eloethan Thu 31-Oct-13 22:13:37

I didn't know anything about this and missed the letter in the Guardian. What is the media for if it is not to uncover issues like this? It is absolutely essential that these statistics about child mortality continue being collected.

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Aka Thu 31-Oct-13 22:16:14

I've coped and pasted the letter to my MP and added a few of my own pithy comments on it. I then emailed the PM at Downing Street.

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penguinpaperback Thu 31-Oct-13 23:33:57

Reading the cost of producing the data I'm surprised, £10,000-£50,000 is absolute peanuts. angry

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Iam64 Fri 01-Nov-13 08:11:28

It doesn't make any sense does it. I know we don't all agree about government policies, which is as it should be. How can this decision be evidence based?

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JessM Fri 01-Nov-13 08:30:14

Outrageous. This is one of the primary indicators of the effectiveness of a country's health care system.
They are probably gift wrapping this is "cutting red tape" - in other words trying to cut statistician jobs in Westminster.
Here's a suggestion: don't have so many civil servants working in expensive heart-of-London offices - bring the jobs to the margins.
Here's another suggestion - if ministers were not so full of themselves, wanting to pass complicated legislation in the interests of "reform" then you would need far fewer civil servants and consultants in their departments.
Here's another suggestion - stop moving the goalposts all the time. If Gove had come in and said "In the national interests I will do minimum tinkering with the education system which is going in the right direction" he could have sacked most of his department. But the first thing he did was change the name of the department and so incurred loads of costs with new signage, letterheads etc.

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