Health service should develop expertise in child protection, review urges

The health secretary, Alan Johnson, “must immediately address the wariness of staff throughout the health services to engage with child protection work,” a review of the current state of the system for protecting vulnerable children in England has concluded.

GPs, community nurses, and paediatricians “must be helped to develop a wider range of skills and become much more confident in this important area of their work,” urged the report, commissioned by the government from Lord Laming.

Ministers have accepted all 58 recommendations of the inquiry, which was set up after the death of baby P, a 17 month old boy who died in …