LEADING ARTICLE

Enquiries

The confidential enquiry into maternal and child health (CEMACH)

A M Weindling

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Professor A M Weindling
Department of Child Health, University of Liverpool, Neonatal Unit, Liverpool Women’s Hospital, Crown St, Liverpool L8 7SS, UK; a.m.weindling@liv.ac.uk

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A review of the history of confidential enquiries

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Keywords: CEMACH; confidential enquiry

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The Confidential Enquiry into Maternal and Child Health (CEMACH) was established in April 2003. It replaces CESDI (the Confidential Enquiry into Stillbirths and Deaths in Infancy) and CEMD (the Confidential Enquiry into Maternal Deaths); this gives it a truly perinatal focus, but its remit is now wider and includes all childhood death. This paper reviews the history of confidential enquiries, some of the principle findings of CEMACH’s predecessors, and the methodology and aims of CEMACH.

The current system of confidential enquiries started in 1952, just four years after the inception of the NHS. Before that, maternal deaths were reported to the Ministry of Health on an ad hoc basis.¹ The first report of CEMD covered 1952–54, capturing 77% of maternal deaths during that period. From 1985–87 onwards, a single report was published triennially for the whole of the United Kingdom.² The purposes of the CEMD were to assess the . . . [Full text of this article]

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