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.1
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 …