Doctor developing system to diagnose child abuse injuries

At present medical professionals are expected to make decisions using their experience, but many have concerns there is little training or support available to help them make assessments which can be vital to the future of children and their families.

Now Sheffield-based Dr Amaka Offiah has come up with a new system which would, for the first time, compile information about how children under the age of three have sustained injuries such as broken limbs.

The electronic equipment is now available to create a system which, when programmed with enough data, is able to predict whether an injury is likely to have been sustained accidentally, or deliberately caused.

Dr Offiah has named the system Electrica, or electronic knowledge base for clinical care, teaching and research in child abuse, and has begun compiling data.

But the system will cost £100,000 to create and a bid for the money has gone in to Sheffield’s Children’s Hospital Charity, with a decision expected early next year.

If funding was approved, it is likely that Electrica could be operational within six months.

Already a pilot study has been conducted in Sheffield, with the carers of 50 children interviewed. That established that it was extremely unusual for a child under the age of one to sustain a fracture or to need an X-ray, meaning that medical staff should be immediately alert to the possibility of abuse where that does happen.

More data are needed, however, and if the scheme goes ahead it is expected highly detailed accounts of how injuries in children are sustained will be compiled from 10 medical centres, including Sheffield Children’s Hospital and also from the doctors who treat children in Leeds hospitals.

Dr Offiah said: “I realised we needed to collate data in detail. If we can understand what an accidental injury is, hopefully it will help us understand what a non-accidental injury is.”

Electrica would work by providing an indication, by comparing its own database with a specific injury, whether it was likely to be the result of abuse, or sustained innocently.

Diagnosing abuse was a difficult area for doctors, because of the potential consequences of a wrong decision.

“It is a really difficult situation, where you don’t want to remove a child from an environment where it is loved through mis-diagnosis, or return a child to an environment where it is abused through mis-diagnosis,” she said.