Child Protection - Information Sharing Briefing Note: May 2023

Earlier this year we consulted with colleagues from all 152 local authorities and across health, to understand their views on the use of the CP-IS across the prioritised care settings.

The outcome of the engagement was positive for all care settings within scope. It highlighted the need for additional conversations to support the use of CP-IS by Sexual Health.

Specifically with the commissioners and providers of the Termination of Pregnancy Services and Sexual Assault Referral Centres on the use of CP-IS.

This was a result of comments raised around a child or young person’s right to privacy when accessing these services, versus the need to ensure welfare and safeguarding remains paramount in all that we do.

The key outcome from this conversation was to make the service available in these settings. Supporting details can be found in the additional information section.  

Between April and June, the CP-IS programme team have four main priorities:

Working with early adopters of the CP-IS service, to give them access via the National Care Record System. The outcome of this work will result in a toolkit to support wider implementation across the NHS, from July onwards.

Putting in place the Information Governance arrangements necessary to support CP-IS access from the new priority care settings. Updated documentation supporting data sharing will be made available via the Information Sharing Gateway during May, for local authority signature before the end of June.

Working on the technical capabilities that will be required for Shared Care Record and other system integration with the CP-IS service, with a focus on supporting Integrated Care Systems. More detail is provided later in this briefing.

Working out the steps needed to develop a blueprint for implementing CP-IS at the integrated care system level, in advance of implementation responsibility transferring from the Programme team to Integrated Care Boards from April 2024.

The team continue to gather expressions of interest and work to get sites connected to CP-IS via the National Care Record Service as early adopters. If you would like to understand more about the National Care Records Service. 

The Southend Medical Centre (General Practice in hours) is the first site from the new priority care settings to have gone live with CP-IS.

Walsall School Nursing and Health Visitors are expected to be live by mid-May, with all early adopters currently planned for, except for Sexual Health services, to go live by the end of the month. Engagement with Sexual Health services is to start from next week.
The full list of early adopters confirmed so far can be found in the additional information section.

From July onwards, we are looking to work with one Integrated Care Board (ICB) per Health Region to adopt CP-IS across their area.

This includes integration of the CP-IS service with Shared Care Records.

We are looking for expressions of interest to work with us, as early adopters of CP-IS across the Integrated Care System (ICS).

This would entail:

Making CP-IS available to all priority care settings across the Integrated Care System. The route to how we will achieve this depends very much on the technical footprint of your estate. We would work with you to confirm which IT systems are in use, including an understanding of where your systems currently integrate with CP-IS or the Personal Demographics Service (PDS). Other technical pre-requisites, such as the potential requirement for smartcard access, will be investigated.

Working closely with CP-IS implementation specialists from the national programme, between now and end March 24, to help make the service operational.

Supporting us to understand lessons learned from the implementation and use of the system, helping with the transfer of implementation responsibility to ICBs from April 2024.

Working together with people representing safeguarding, the systems in use including the shared care record, and the ICS. We would look to put in place a plan and terms of reference for working together.

The outcome of this work is that we will develop a blueprint or ‘toolkit’ containing best practice, self-help implementation guidance and lessons learned from the early adopter sites to enable the smooth implementation and rollout of CP-IS across further Integrated Care Systems.

So far, we have had expressions of interest from the following areas:

• North West Health Region: Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB who we are actively working with to integrate their Shared Care Record with CP-IS. This integration will use the new FHIR API (integration technology) that is being designed.
• Midlands Health Region: Birmingham and Solihull ICB: Birmingham Shared Care Record have expressed an interest and an initial conversation is planned for mid-May.
• East of England Health Region: Hertfordshire and West Essex ICB: Hertfordshire Partnership Shared Care Record. An initial conversation has been held but further exploration needed by the trust to determine how they would achieve access to the CP-IS service.

If you are interested in putting forward an expression of interest to be one of the early adopters of CP-IS at the Integrated Care System Level, please email Nila Surti at [email protected]. We will then be in touch for an initial conversation.

Recording unborn child protection plans for CP-IS

To help with understanding and use of the service, we have been asked to provide some information on recording unborn child protection plans on CP-IS.

Any child protection plan for an unborn baby will sit on the mother’s record within CP-IS.

The mother’s NHS number and demographic details will therefore be needed for any unborn child protection plan which is to be shared via CP-IS.

Unborn children who have been allocated a child protection plan prior to birth will only upload to CP-IS if the mother’s demographic details including the NHS number are recorded on the Local Authority Social Care System, with the unborn child recorded as an unborn and linked to the mother’s record.

When this information is uploaded to CP-IS the mother’s credentials will be used to allocate the unborn child protection plan against her NHS number.

It is the mother’s health record that the NHS will access upon treatment and therefore know as an unborn child protection plan is present.

When the delivery of a baby occurs, the midwife will provide the Local Authority with the NHS number for the new born baby which will allow the Local Authority to end the unborn child protection plan and create the child protection plan against the baby’s record.

You should refer to your social care system supplier training guide for specific details of how unborn child plans are managed within the system you use.

In April all Directors of Children's Services and Public Health were reminded of the requirement for the continued inclusion of Children and Young people with a Voluntary Care Order under Section 20 of the Children Act 1989 in CP-IS.

We have requested confirmation, by 12 May, that all local authorities share Section 20 Looked After Children in CP-IS returns, or if there are any issues preventing this from happening that they get in touch.

This was an urgent action arising from the Hesley Doncaster serious incident review.

The reminder also advised of a request to share information on children and young people where an E1 Placement Order has been granted under Section 21 of the Adoption and Children Act 2002.

This new cohort of children was requested for inclusion via the CP-IS Local Authority User Group and has been endorsed by the CP-IS Programme Board.

We have also requested feedback by 12 May on the inclusion of E1 Placement Order Children within the service.

If you would like to raise an incident for our attention please access stating the service affected, for example MESH, CP-IS via our customer service portal.  

Alternatively, to contact the CP-IS Operations team please email [email protected]. Ensure you include  a web address, main email and any relevant number. 

Key themes arising from the additional consultation on the use of CP-IS within Sexual Health

Consent

The question of consent to view information relating to a child or young person to support safeguarding is not specific to the use of CP-IS from within Sexual Health services.
This is considered at the multi-agency level, where information about a child or young person is routinely shared. Information on the service will be viewed, to support professional curiosity where there is a welfare or safeguarding concern.

Access to CP-IS

Supported, with no disadvantages identified

Sharing of information from health back to social care via the CP-IS service

When a record is accessed on CP-IS by health, the system can send a notification of record access back to social care. This provides limited information on who has accessed the record and which service it was accessed from.

The consultation confirmed that this is not a requirement for CP-IS access from sexual health, as the concern was that sharing information back to social care would raise the bar for CP-IS access from sexual health.

It also re-emphasised concerns raised during the initial consultation of the risk that a child or young person may not engage with these services, if they knew that information would be shared in this way.

We are now consulting with the Data Protection Officer and Information Commissioners Office about the use of CP-IS in sexual health services before identifying and working with early adopters of the service.

Early adopters confirmed for CP-IS access

General Practice in hours:

Northeast and North Cumbria ICB

• Bridge End Surgery
• William Brown Centre
• Bedlingtonshire Medical Group
• Wooler Health Surgery

Humber and North Yorkshire ICB

• Beacon Medical
• Manor Road Surgery
• Laurbel Surgery

Suffolk and Northeast Essex ICB

• Wivenhoe Medical Centre

Mid and Southeast Essex ICB

• Southend Medical Centre - now Live via SystmOne

North Central London ICB

• The Goodinge Group Practice

Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services

• North Central London ICB: West London NHS Foundation Trust
• North Central London ICB: additional site pending confirmation
• Hampshire and Isle of Wight ICB: site pending confirmation

Community paediatrics

• Lincolnshire ICB (pending confirmation)
•  Hampshire and Isle of Wight ICB (Pending confirmation)

Dentistry scheduled and emergency care settings

• North Central London ICB (pending confirmation)

Early adopter identified for Scheduled Care, pending confirmation with safeguarding lead.
Require further support identifying early adopters and would encourage additional support.

0-19 Service: School nursing

Black Country ICB

•  Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust

 Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB

• Stonyhurst College

0-19 Service health visitors

Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust