Domestic Abuse: Learning from Tragedy and Preventing Future Deaths
New statutory guidance for Domestic Abuse Related Death Reviews has now come into force – marking an important change in how England and Wales learn from deaths connected to domestic abuse.
On 15 September 2026, the Home Office published new statutory guidance underpinning Domestic Abuse Related Death Reviews (DARDRs), formerly known as Domestic Homicide Reviews (DHRs).
The changes form part of the government's wider commitment to improve how we learn from deaths following domestic abuse and, crucially, how that learning is translated into action to protect others, but this is about much more than changing the name of a review.
From Domestic Homicide Reviews to Domestic Abuse Related Death Reviews
The Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 amended the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004, replacing Domestic Homicide Reviews with Domestic Abuse Related Death Reviews in England and Wales.
The legislative changes came into force on 15 September 2026, alongside the new statutory guidance.
The new name better reflects the range of deaths that can fall within the scope of a review.
A DARDR should now be undertaken where a death has, or appears to have, resulted from domestic abuse, using the definition of domestic abuse within the Domestic Abuse Act 2021.
That definition recognises that domestic abuse extends beyond physical violence and can include controlling or coercive behaviour, emotional abuse and economic abuse.
Importantly, reviews can therefore encompass not only homicide, but circumstances including suicide following domestic abuse and unexplained deaths that give rise to concern.
This is an important shift in safeguarding practice.
It encourages professionals and organisations to consider the wider pattern of abuse surrounding a person's death rather than relying upon the circumstances immediately presenting to them.
Why do these reviews matter?
Domestic Abuse Related Death Reviews provide an opportunity for local and national agencies, communities and wider society to examine what happened and identify opportunities for learning. Their purpose is not simply to establish what individual organisations did.
Effective reviews should consider the wider picture:
What was known about the victim's experiences?
Were patterns of abuse recognised?
Were there opportunities to intervene?
Was information available across different agencies that, when viewed collectively, indicated greater risk?
Were there barriers preventing the victim from accessing help?
Did agencies understand the perpetrator's behaviour and associated risk?
What needs to change to prevent similar deaths in the future?
The Home Office describes the principle underpinning DARDRs as treating every death as preventable. For safeguarding professionals, that is a powerful starting point.
Victims/Survivors at the heart of the review
A significant feature of the new statutory guidance is its focus on placing victims/survivors at the heart of reviews.
This matters because agency records rarely tell the whole story.
Family members, friends, colleagues and communities may hold important information about a person's experiences, relationships and circumstances that was never visible to statutory or professional services.
A victim/survivor-centred and trauma-informed approach can help reviews understand the person's lived experience rather than simply producing a chronology of agency involvement.
It also reinforces the importance of professional curiosity.
Safeguarding practitioners need to be willing to look beyond an individual incident or presentation and consider patterns, context and information held elsewhere.
Strengthening the DARDR process
The new statutory guidance forms part of a wider Home Office programme to reform the review process.
Alongside the legislative changes, the government has highlighted several developments.
A Home Office Quality Assurance Board, introduced in 2025, is intended to increase the number of reports reviewed each month and enable Community Safety Partnerships to receive feedback more quickly.
The government has also committed to developing a new oversight mechanism for recommendations arising from DARDRs.
In addition, training for DARDR Chairs will become compulsory, with the aim of ensuring those responsible for leading reviews are appropriately equipped to undertake the role effectively and consistently.
Together, these changes signal a greater emphasis not only on conducting reviews, but on the quality, consistency, oversight and implementation of the learning that emerges from them.
The safeguarding challenge: turning learning into action
This is perhaps the most important part.
Safeguarding reviews only improve outcomes when organisations do something with what they learn.
Domestic abuse-related deaths, Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews, Prevention of Future Death Reports and other review processes can identify themes including:
missed opportunities to intervene;
poor information sharing;
incidents considered in isolation;
insufficient professional curiosity;
weak multi-agency coordination; and
failure to recognise escalating patterns of risk.
Publishing a recommendation does not, by itself, make anybody safer. Organisations need mechanisms for taking learning from reviews and asking:
Could this happen here?
That means translating learning into policy, procedures, workforce development, supervision, risk assessment, multi-agency working and governance, and importantly, organisations need to be able to demonstrate not simply that an action has been completed, but that it has resulted in meaningful change.
What should safeguarding leaders be considering?
The publication of the new guidance provides a useful opportunity for safeguarding leaders across sectors to reflect on their own arrangements.
Consider:
Recognition: Would your workforce recognise domestic abuse beyond physical violence, including coercive control, emotional abuse and economic abuse?
Professional curiosity: Would practitioners explore patterns and context rather than treating individual incidents in isolation?
Suicide and mental health: Would domestic abuse be considered when someone experiencing abuse presents with deteriorating mental health, suicidal thoughts or crisis?
Information sharing: Could important pieces of information sit separately across your organisation or partner agencies without anybody seeing the complete picture?
Workforce confidence: Do staff know what to do when domestic abuse is disclosed, suspected or identified?
Multi-agency working: Are escalation routes, referrals and information-sharing arrangements clear?
Learning: How does your organisation identify relevant learning from safeguarding reviews locally and nationally?
Assurance: Can leaders and boards demonstrate that learning has resulted in changes to practice – and understand whether those changes have actually made a difference?
These questions are relevant far beyond specialist domestic abuse services. Domestic abuse can be encountered across health, housing, education, workplaces, charities, criminal justice, community services and many other settings. Every organisation therefore has a potential role in recognising concerns and contributing to an effective safeguarding response.
From tragedy to prevention
The government's wider Violence Against Women and Girls strategy identifies learning from tragedy as an important part of preventing future harm.
The publication of the new DARDR guidance reinforces a principle that should sit at the heart of safeguarding:
Learning is only valuable when it changes practice.
For organisations, the question should therefore not simply be:
"Have we read the review?"
It should be:
"What have we learned, what have we changed and how do we know that change is making people safer?"
That is how safeguarding moves beyond review and towards prevention.
Further reading
Home Office – Domestic abuse: learning from tragedy and preventing future deaths
Published 15 September 2026
Domestic Abuse Related Death Reviews: statutory guidance and supporting resources
At RLB, we support organisations to move beyond compliance by strengthening safeguarding practice, governance, workforce confidence and organisational learning.
If your organisation would benefit from support to review its safeguarding arrangements, embed learning from safeguarding reviews or strengthen domestic abuse awareness within your workforce, please get in touch.