Every child deserves a great start in life and the PRSB’s new standard for recording child health events will help professionals to achieve this, by ensuring that everyone involved in a child’s care has access to the right information.

Part of the Healthy Child Programme to improve the health of children and prevent illness, the standard spells out what data on screening tests, immunisations and other developmental milestones should be accessible for parents and professionals to ensure they have the necessary information to make the right decisions for safer care. From GPs to school nurses, children often receive care from a wide range of different health and care services.

For these services to work well together, they will need to share the right information between their IT systems, which can only be done if it’s recorded in a standardised way. Developed in partnership with NHS Digital and NHS England, the standard will enable better information sharing.

The information standard has been developed in consultation with parents and health and care professionals and will help professionals and parents to make the right decisions about their child’s care. Standardised and comparable information provides the foundations for future innovations and improvements in health and care.

Speaking about the standard, newly appointed PRSB chair and GP, Professor Maureen Baker CBE, said: “I am convinced that this new way of sharing standardised information digitally will support this goal by enabling safer and more efficient care, as well as better support for children and their families.”

Dr Andy Spencer, who was the clinical lead on the project on behalf of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said: “It is important that we empower parents to get involved in their child’s health and development. Once implemented, this new improved way of sharing information will give parents the same access to their child’s personal health record as health and care professionals, and they will always know who the records are being shared with and why.”