THE NATIONAL Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) in Northern Ireland has called for more disclosure about the deaths of children who are known to social services or who have died in care.
Figures for the number of children and young adults who have died in care in the North have not been officially collated but are very small, according to the Department of Health in Northern Ireland.
While the Health Service Agency, in revised figures published yesterday, estimated that 199 children and young adults died in care over the last 10 years in the Republic the health department in the North said no similar statistics were recorded because the incidence of such deaths was “very small”.
A department spokesman said that each year some 2,500 children and young adults were in care in Northern Ireland, the vast majority of whom were in foster care or staying with relatives.
“Only a very small proportion of that number are in care homes,” he said.
He added that when the issue of natural and unnatural deaths of children in care first broke in the South the Northern Department of Health carried out an unofficial review of the number of similar deaths in the North.
“We have had a look at the figures and in each year over the past 10 years the number of deaths was in single figures and in some years there were no deaths,” the spokesman said.
He also commented on a BBC Northern Ireland report yesterday that said that at least 10 vulnerable children – some of them babies – “known” to social services had died in Northern Ireland since 2003.
He said that each year some 22,000 children and young adults come to the official attention of social services in Northern Ireland, and that over a 10-year period the total number of such children would be “many multiples of that figure”.
Statistically it was inevitable that a number of these children would die each year from a variety of causes including illness, accidents, neglect, abuse and suicide, he said.
Each death was carefully reviewed and investigated through case management review reports. Unlike the situation in England,these reports are not published in Northern Ireland.
The NSPCC in Northern Ireland said that while it opposed the publication of full review reports it was important that Northern Ireland moved towards the publication of meaningful executive summaries.