Alongside the report is a range of data tables, where more detail is available.
The report contains a breakdown of child deaths in England by region, ethnicity, level of deprivation, cause of death and wider. It states:
- There were 3,577 child (0 – 17 years) deaths in England in the year ending 31 March 2024, an estimated rate of 29.8 deaths per 100,000 children.
- The number of deaths decreased by 4% on the previous year but remained higher than 2019-20.
- Infant (children under 1 year) deaths decreased by 2% on the previous year and deaths of children aged between 1 and 17 years decreased by 8%.
- The child death rate in the year ending 31 March 2024 remained highest for children of black or black British ethnicity (55.4 per 100,000 population) and Asian or Asian British ethnicity (46.8 per 100,000 population) (Figure 3). The rates for all ethnic groups have decreased in comparison to the previous year. This was more than double the rate of children from a white British ethnic background (22.9 per 100,000 population). The child death rate was lowest for those of Chinese ethnicity (16.4 per 100,000 population).
- The child death rate for children resident in the most deprived neighbourhoods of England was 42.9 per 100,000 population, more than twice that of children resident in the least deprived neighbourhoods (17.2 per 100,000 population) (Figure 5).
Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health President, Professor Steve Turner, said:
Every death of a child or young person is a unique tragedy and represents a devastating loss for their families and carers, and so the latest NCMD figures make for heavy reading.
We can see that children of black or black British ethnicity and Asian or Asian British ethnicity are dying at more than double the rate of children from a white British ethnic background. Furthermore, children from the most deprived neighbourhoods of England are more than twice as likely to die than children resident in the least deprived neighbourhoods.
Figures such as these in a nation as rich as ours are unforgivable. This is a further sign of how we as a society are letting our children down. Behind the data published today is a whole raft of deteriorating child health outcomes and the clear driver is rising child poverty in the UK.
The UK Government has been clear about their ambitions to tackle child poverty and reduce health inequalities. This is welcome, but we need concrete steps set out urgently to achieve this ambition. This must include scrapping the two-child limit to benefit payments, extending the statutory Healthy Start scheme to more families who need it, restoring the public health grant and clearly considering the role of health in the work of the child poverty taskforce. This is not all. It is also vital that we have a well-supported child health workforce to support high quality public services families and children.
This data has to be a wake-up call for us all and I urge our political leaders to clearly set out what action they will take in response. Children are 25% of our population but 100% of our future.