Documentation
Description:
What is CHS?
The Northern Ireland Child Health System (CHS) is an administrative information system that supports the delivery and monitoring of child health services across Northern Ireland. CHS records information relating to childhood immunisations, preschool health reviews, growth measurements, and other routine child health contacts delivered as part of the Healthy Child, Healthy Future programme. The system provides a longitudinal record of child health activity from birth through early childhood and is a key source of information on vaccination uptake, child growth and development, and child health service coverage.
Where is it used?
CHS is used across all five Health and Social Care Trusts in Northern Ireland by child health teams, health visitors, immunisation services, and other community child health professionals. The system supports the delivery of routine childhood health programmes, including preschool health reviews and immunisation schedules, and is used for service monitoring, reporting, and statistical publications.
Where does it get its data from?
CHS is populated through information recorded by Health and Social Care Trust staff during routine child health contacts. Data are entered or extracted from operational systems used by health visitors, community child health services, and immunisation programmes. The system captures details on childhood vaccinations, developmental and health reviews, and growth measurements undertaken as part of routine child health surveillance. The system incorporates selected pregnancy and birth information from NIMATS, enabling analyses that follow children from the antenatal period through early childhood.
Coverage
Spatial:
United Kingdom,Northern Ireland
Typical Age Range:
0-18
Follow Up:
6 - 12 Months
Provenance
Origin
Purposes:
Care
Sources:
EPR
Collection Situations:
Secondary care - Outpatients
Temporal
Accrual Periodicity:
Irregular
Start Date:
01 January 2004
Time Lag:
2-6 months
Accessibility
Access
Access Service:
Remote access can now be granted via an HSCNI tenancy of the UK Secure
e-Research Platform (UK SeRP), the HBS still offer the physical safe setting in
Belfast for local research.
Access Request Cost:
Delivery Lead Time:
2-6 months
Jurisdictions:
GB-NIR
Data Controller:
HSC Health Trusts (Belfast, Northern, South Eastern, Southern and Western)
Data Processor:
Health And Social Care Northern Ireland Honest Broker Service
Usage
Data Use Limitations:
Research use only
Data Use Requirements:
Project-specific restrictions
Resource Creators:
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The authors would like to acknowledge the help provided by the staff of the Honest Broker Service (HBS) within the Business Services Organisation Northern Ireland (BSO). The HBS is funded by the BSO and the Department of Health (DoH). The authors alone are responsible for the interpretation of the data and any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the BSO.
Format and Standards
Vocabulary Encoding Schemes:
LOCAL
Conforms To:
LOCAL
Languages:
en
Formats:
- text
- csv