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Healthy Child Programme: final report

1.3. Healthy Child Record Specification and Healthy Child Events Specification

The Healthy Child Record standard supports the Healthy Child Programme: the universal preventative service, providing families with a programme of screening, immunisation, health and development reviews, supplemented by advice around health, wellbeing and parenting. This programme is offered to all families with a child in England and they are supported in understanding and documenting the care received by a booklet they are given known as the Personal Child Health Record (PCHR), sometimes known as ‘the red book’.

The Healthy Child Record standard covers, at a summary level, the scope of the Healthy Child Programme and the PCHR. It is the set of information that it is currently exchanged between professionals and parents to support direct care of a child.

The standard is provided in two documents:

  • Healthy Child Record Specification (a separate document) – this contains the format of an electronic care record supporting the Healthy Child Programme and specifies the clinical headings and information model which provide the standardised structure for that record.
  • Healthy Child Events Specification (a separate document) – this provides the data models and detailed content for the care record.

NHS Digital are building a National Events Management Solution (NEMS) to provide a ‘subscribe and publish’ service which will enable information on the Healthy Child Programme (e.g. screening reviews, immunisations etc) to be published and consumed by those involved in the care of the child and their parents. Technical Specifications for these events will be documented in the Healthy Child FHIR Events Catalogue and published on GitHub. This catalogue will reflect the Healthy Child Record Specification and Healthy Child Events Specification, and will be updated during the Alpha and Beta development period.

Page last updated: 27 March 2026