Healthy Child Record Standard

Healthy Child Record Standard

The PRSB has produced a standard for child health records to support the Healthy Child Programme and its prevention agenda. This innovative standard helps everyone involved in caring for children to share information using standardised paperless digital records. It aims to streamline the sharing of critical health information, ultimately enhancing the efficiency and quality of care for children across various health services.

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Current release

Version: v2.2
> View documentation for this standard (external link to NHS Standards Directory)

From 01 January 2026, this standard will be owned and managed by NHS England and is made available for reuse or amendment under the Open Government Licence v3.0 (OGL 3.0). A review of the ongoing requirement for this standard will be undertaken by NHS England. Details on this and any update to the standard will be published on the NHS Standards Directory. If you have any questions or feedback relating to this standard, please email: england.standards.assurance@nhs.net.

 

About this standard

The Healthy Child Record Standard outlines what information on screening tests, immunisations, and developmental milestones should be accessible to make sure that children receive appropriate care. The goal is that everyone involved in a child’s care, including parents, will in the future have secure access to a standardised set of paperless, digital child health records. 

Whilst the focus has been the Healthy Child Programme, the information models developed may support recording for other purposes within a child health record. The standard also provides a foundation for digital personal child health records, using new infrastructure and messaging to provide interoperability for digital personal child health records (DPCHR). The aim being to supplement or replace paper Redbooks, making it easier for families to hold online records for their children and access them via smartphones, laptops and tablets.

“If someone’s been working for a period of time, in a form of therapy, for instance, where there’s an agreed plan for the locality when they may present in an emergency situation … then it’s really important for us to be able to see that that information and be able to act appropriately according to that because, you know, there isn’t and there shouldn’t be a stock response to that. These plans are designed to be individualised and personalised.  All services should be giving that personalised approach to care wherever possible. And a standard such as [PCSP standard] definitely moves us closer towards being able to do that. [Not acting on agreed plans] is a key finding in terms of emergency responses over the years where responses have been inappropriate.” – Mental Health Nurse

“Following a particular plan that’s been put into place will result in much better outcomes and prevent the sort of poor outcome which would otherwise be leading to an unplanned hospital admission.” – General Practitioner

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