By: Zosia Kmietowicz
The medical profession and NHS leaders need to tackle “ambivalence” around sharing information on children at risk of sexual exploitation, the independent review into grooming gangs has said.1The crossbench peer Louise Casey, who conducted the review, said that there was “no shortage” of reviews, recommendations, or strategies to deal with child sexual exploitation since it was first defined by the government in 2009 but that “collaboration and grip has been lacking,” letting down victims and the public.The review, which covered England and Wales, found that no official figures on group based child exploitation were collected, but data showed that around 500 000 children a year were subject to sexual abuse of some kind, and 100 000 offences of child sexual abuse and exploitation were recorded by police in 2024. Casey wrote that, throughout the many reports and initiatives of the past 15 years, “health services are relentlessly cited as a key safeguarding partner which does not share information as easily and frequently as it should.”Casey quoted the 2022 Telford review of child exploitation, which found that health services often turned a blind eye to abuse. The …
