Coverage of my research into mortality from FII in BASW’s Professional Social Work

My research into Mortality and serious harm due to FII and a call for action https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcaf089

Let’s consign FII to the history books

📢 Important Update: New Research Reveals No Child Deaths from FII – Let’s Act Together

In 2002, the label Fabricated or Induced Illness (FII) was introduced to replace the discredited term Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy (MSbP), which had already led to serious miscarriages of justice. The new term was meant to guide child protection professionals—but in reality, it has caused widespread harm.

Over time, FII has come to cover a broad and vague range of parental behaviours—from anxiety and overprotectiveness to deliberate deception—often without any clear evidence. Many parents, especially those of disabled or chronically ill children, have found themselves wrongly accused simply for advocating for their child’s care or challenging psychosomatic explanations.

🔍 New research published this week changes everything.

A comprehensive review of Serious Case Reviews (SCRs) in England from 2010 to 2021 found:

• No recorded child deaths due to FII in over a decade
• Only four cases of serious harm, better dealt with as medical error than  parental abuse
• No supporting evidence for previously claimed high rates of death or long-term disability
• The real harm is to large numbers of families who are wrongly accused

This research directly challenges claims still made in official guidance, including from the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych), which suggest FII causes death in 6-9% of cases and serious harm in a further 6–9% of cases.

💔 Meanwhile, the harm to wrongly accused families is real, widespread, and devastating—disrupted care, loss of trust, emotional trauma, stigma, and children being needlessly taken from loving homes.

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Let’s consign FII to the history books—where it belongs.

Let’s put the label Fabricated or Induced Illness (FII) where it belongs—in the history books, alongside Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy, which has already been discredited.

In the rare cases where a parent or carer deliberately harms a child by inducing an illness, this is a serious crime—and should be investigated by the police. The FII label does not help prevent such harm. Instead, it often causes more harm—by focusing suspicion on innocent parents rather than addressing the real problems in medical care, such as failures in diagnosis and treatment.

It’s time to stop using a label that causes more harm than good. Let’s work together to protect families—and demand change.

📣 What You Can Do – Join the Call for Change

We need your voice. This is the moment to act.

✉️ Write to:

• Your Government minister – asking for immediate review of FII-related guidance and training in schools and social care:
  
  England: : janet.daby.mp@parliament.uk
  Scotland: MinisterCYPTP@gov.scot
  Northern Ireland:   mike.nesbitt@mla.niassembly.gov.uk
  Wales: Dawn.Bowden@gov.wales
• Your local councillors – urging them to raise this issue with children’s services in your area https://www.gov.uk/find-your-local-councillors
• The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) – calling for withdrawal and a full review of their 2021 guidance on FII and Perplexing Presentations health.policy@rcpch.ac.uk
• The Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych) – challenging the unsupported claims about mortality and harm in FII guidance https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/about-us/contact-us

📢 Raise awareness in parent networks and disability groups. Share this research. Tell your story if you feel safe to do so. The more we show how widespread and damaging misidentification is, the harder it becomes to ignore.

🔗 Link to the new publication later this week.
The accepted manuscript is embargoed until 29^th May. The article is briefly free on this link https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcaf089

Parents, Families and Allies Network

Contact: Andy  andy@pfan.uk