Merseyside Police procedures for children caught up in domestic abuse have been revised after criticism from Ofsted.

The move came after Ofsted boss Sir Michael Wilshaw said there are "serious weaknesses" in how a string of forces deal with the issue in a damning letter to police watchdog chief Sir Tom Winsor.

He wrote: "My worry is that if chief constables fail to give this issue sufficient priority we may see a repeat of the sort of catastrophic failings we saw a few years ago in places like Rotherham, Oxford and elsewhere."

Sir Michael said more than half of Ofsted's 42 inspections of local authority children's services in 2015/16 revealed "serious weaknesses" in police contributions to protecting youngsters.

An inspection of Wirral Council's child safeguarding this summer gave it a rating of "inadequate" - the lowest possible.

A section of the report focused on the response from police, saying there were delays in flagging up domestic abuse cases to the council.

Officers had sometimes failed to attend key meetings about child protection.

Superintendent Tracey Hayes said: “Merseyside Police officers and staff within the Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub Wirral are working closely with key partners to address the key issues raised during the course of the inspection.

“The recommendation from the report was to ensure that strategy meetings are timely and include information from the key professionals so that risk to children can be identified when assessing the need for intervention.

“The referral process has been reviewed and there is now a robust risk assessment process to ensure that referrals are dealt with in a timely fashion.

"This ensures that we are prioritising and protecting those vulnerable victims that need our help and support the most.”

The National Police Chiefs' Council lead for child protection, Chief Constable Simon Bailey, said he will raise Sir Michael's concerns with all chief officers.

He said: "I am confident that the police service has significantly improved our response to protecting children in recent years.

"That does not mean that there aren't challenges at times in forces in terms of resourcing and working with our partners; our partners in social care, education and health face these challenges too.

"It is therefore vitally important that we continue to work together so that the children are given adequate protection and support.

"Strengthening these relationships is the only way we'll prevent future abuse."

The Wirral authority is investing £2m into improving children's services as a result of the inspection.

Calls for senior councillors to resign were rebuffed last week at a specially-called meeting to discuss the Ofsted report.