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Early Child Development - 4-5 year review statistics

The 4-5 year review is an assessment generally carried out by a health visitor. This review was introduced in April 2017 and should be offered to all children. A wide range of information is collected including developmental domains such as speech, language and communication, hearing, vision, personal/ social, behavioural/emotional, fine motor and gross motor.

All publications and supporting material to this topic area can be found on the Public Health Scotland website. The date of the next release can be found on our list of forthcoming publications.

Data and Resources

Additional Info

Field Value
Source Child Health Systems Programme Pre-School (CHSP PreSchool), Scottish Immunisation and Recall System (SIRS)
Author Child Health Team, Public Health Scotland
Version 1.0
Last Updated June 2, 2025, 09:55 (BST)
Created November 6, 2020, 12:55 (GMT)
Contact Address Public Health Scotland, Gyle Square, 1 South Gyle Crescent, Edinburgh EH12 9EB
Subject Child Health
Frequency Annual
Time frame of data and timeliness Children eligible for the 4-5 year review in financial years 2017/18-2018/19. No delays between receipt and processing of data for publication.
Coverage Offered to all children registered in Scotland on the Scottish Immunisation and Recall System .
Completeness The 4-5 year review was introduced in Scotland in April 2017, although implementation dates varied across NHS Boards, and this review was only mandated by governement policy for children turning 4 from April 2020 onwards. Therefore coverage was low in the fist few years of review. See the technical document for more details (https://publichealthscotland.scot/media/6579/2021-04-27-early-child-development-technical-report.pdf).
Accuracy This is a relatively new data collection, which is becoming estabalished in all boards. Coverage was 22% in 2017/18 and 37% in 2018/19, as not all boards had implemented the review by the time of publication.
Continuity of data Data available from 2017/18 onwards. Deprivation data for 2017/2018 has been first released in November 2020 based on SIMD2016. In the latest release this has been updated to use SIMD2020.
Concepts and definitions See technical report: https://publichealthscotland.scot/media/6579/2021-04-27-early-child-development-technical-report.pdf
Disclosure The PHS protocol on Statistical Disclosure Control is followed.
Revision statement These data are not subject to planned major revisions.
Official statistics designation Official Statistics
Relevance and key uses of the statistics Monitoring the delivery of the 4-5 year review, the developmental status of the children and making information publicly available for planning, provision of services and providing comparative information.
Format csv
Language English
Links

Information on the provision of child health reviews recommended as part of the English Healthy Child Programme, including the 2-2½ year review, is provided by Community Services Data Set