The battered baby / prepared by the Standing Medical Advisory Committee for the Central Health Services Council ... [etc.].

  • Great Britain. Standing Medical Advisory Committee
Date:
1970
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The battered baby / prepared by the Standing Medical Advisory Committee for the Central Health Services Council ... [etc.]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    APPENDIX To Medical Officers of Health and Children’s Officers of County Councils, County Boroughs, London Boroughs and authorities with delegated functions. 9th February 1970 Dear Doctor/Children’s Officer BATTERED BABIES In recent years there has been increasing awareness of the problem of young children who are injured by their parents. If no preventive action is taken when these cases come to light the child may be at risk of further injury and subsequent children in the family may be similarly at risk. In 1966 the British Paediatric Association published a memoran- dum on “‘The Battered Baby” (British Medical Journal, 5th March 1966, pages 601-603) giving advice on action which might be taken when deliberate injury to a child was suspected and quoting extracts from the statutes which may be relevant in dealing with such situations. Copies of this memorandum were circulated from our Departments to Medical Officers of Health, Chairmen of Local Medical Committees and Local Authority Children’s Departments. A report, “78 Battered Children”, published on 14th September 1969 by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, gives an account of 78 children under 4 who had received serious physical abuse. The findings of the N.S.P.C.C. Report are based on cases reported to its social workers during the year Ist July 1967 to 30th June 1968. These findings and other information available to us suggest that there is still some lack of awareness of the syndrome and that local discussions among those concerned with a view to the adoption of procedures on the lines recommended by the B.P.A. would be valuable. All agencies concerned with child care and the police may be involved in the problems associated with the battered child. We are therefore writing jointly to Children’s Officers and Medical Officers of Health to ask you to consult together and to bring into your discussions the others involved—representatives of the Local Medical Committee, paediatricians and consultants responsible for accident and emergency departments, since hospital casualty officers are frequently the first doctors involved. It is desirable that the police should be brought: into your discussions; and there will be
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