LEADING ARTICLE
Leading article
How good is the evidence available in child protection?
Department of Child Health, Cardiff University, Heath Park, Cardiff, UK
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Alison M Kemp
Department of Child Health, Cardiff University, Heath Park, Cardiff CF14 4XN; kempam@cardiff.ac.uk
Accepted 13 October 2006
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
There is little doubt that the attitude of most paediatricians to child protection has changed since the travails of Roy Meadow and David Southall. However, those involved in giving evidence in court may have noticed increasing difficulties before then.
Twenty years ago, child abuse was seen and managed in the general paediatric ward, often used as a "place of safety" while complex clinical and social issues were dealt with. Paediatricians and the Children Act 1989 recognised that hospitalisation was inappropriate for most child protection cases, and as paediatrics became a field of subspecialties, child protection became the domain of community paediatricians. This has to some extent led to a deskilling of general paediatricians who have lost confidence in the field, further compounded by recent high-profile legal cases.
The legal system evolved so that, in any but the most straightforward child protection cases, the examining paediatrician gave little more
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