Female Genital Mutilation - Information Sharing

Female Genital Mutilation - Information Sharing (FGM-IS) is a national IT system that supports the early intervention and ongoing safeguarding of girls, under the age of 18, who have a family history of female genital mutilation (FGM).

The service supports the sharing of FGM information, and allows authorised healthcare professionals and administrative staff throughout England to view information about girls with a family history of FGM, regardless of care setting.

The service facilitates sharing local data nationally, removing the need for organisations to create duplicate copies of information across systems and by enabling access to up to date information directly from one central repository.

Authorised healthcare workers can access FGM-IS either via the National Care Record Service (NCRS) or via a local point-of-care application. They can add, view or delete FGM information.

Benefits of FGM-IS include:

• a national system - allows authorised healthcare workers throughout England to view information about girls with a family history of FGM, regardless of location
• information sharing - shares FGM information with authorised healthcare professionals and administrative staff, who come into contact with girls with a family history of FGM as they grow up
• safeguarding - provides an opportunity to strengthen local safeguarding frameworks and processes
• compassionate - helps avoid girls and their families being repeatedly asked the same questions about a difficult and potentially traumatic topic

FGM-IS is for healthcare professionals and administrative staff who have a responsibility to safeguard girls and provide early intervention of FGM, including:

• GPs
• GP practice nurses
• midwives
• health visitors
• school nurses
• local safeguarding leads

FGM-IS is only for use in England, and only for the purpose of direct care.

FGM-IS does not have a user interface - users must access it indirectly via point-of-care applications, such as:

• local clinical systems integrated with FGM-IS
• the National Care Record Service (NCRS)

Access is controlled via the NHS Care Identity Service 2 (NHS CIS2). 

Who is included

FGM-IS holds information for girls that have a family history of FGM. Records are created by authorised healthcare professional or administrative staff at the point where the FGM family history is identified.

What information is held on each person

Each record in FGM-IS includes:

• the date the family history of FGM was identified
• the date that the FGM indicator was added to the system
• in which organisation the FGM information was added to the system
• who in that organisation added the FGM indicator

It is strongly recommended that organisations use the national FGM-IS service to meet their obligations because it allows FGM indicators to be shared across care organisations and regional boundaries.

Organisations and agencies should take a coordinated approach to ensure children are effectively safeguarded. A range of individual organisations and agencies working with children and families have specific statutory duties to promote the welfare of children and ensure they are protected from harm.

Section 11 of the Children Act 2004 places duties on a range of organisations, agencies and individuals to ensure their functions, and any services that they contract out to others, are discharged having regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.

NHS organisations and agencies and the independent sector, including NHS England and clinical commissioning groups, NHS Trusts, NHS Foundation Trusts and General Practitioners all have responsibilities under this Act.

1. If a family history of FGM is identified, the healthcare worker uses a point-of-care application to register the girl. 
2. Later, when the girl presents at another care setting, the healthcare worker can view the girl's record and see that she has a family history of FGM.
3. Indicators can be accessed via the National Care Record Service (NCRS) or with a local clinical system integrated with FGM-IS.
4. As part of the girl's medical assessment, the healthcare worker bears in mind any family history of FGM and, as always, is alert to safeguarding issues including FGM.

Example of use include:

• a GP using GP software is alerted to a family history of FGM during a consultation with a teenage girl, and is able to take this into consideration as a safeguarding issue
• a midwife using NCRS is alerted to a family history of FGM during a consultation with a mother and baby girl, and is able to discuss this with the mother as a safeguarding issue
• a maternity nurse uses NCRS to record a family history of FGM for a newborn baby girl

FGM-IS videos

The videos provide the following guidance on FGM-IS for healthcare workers:

• how it's used when a child's family ask for travel vaccinations
• clinicians do not always need to ask questions about FGM
• when a teenager asks their GP for help
• how FGIM-IS can lead to reporting under the FGM mandatory reporting duty
• how to discuss FGM-IS with parents who have concerns
• how it would be used in the 8-week baby check with a GP

This service is live. It was launched by the Department of Health and NHS England at the Girl Summit in July 2014 and and has been in active use September 2015.

FGM-IS is a bronze service which means it is supported between 8am and 6pm, Monday to Friday excluding bank holidays.

The items considered for the FGM-IS roadmap for 2023 are:

For more on accessing FGM-IS, see the Implementation page.

Access is controlled via  NHS Care Identity Service 2 (NHS CIS2) or other strong authentication methods and the appropriate Role Based Access Codes (RBAC). Only authorised healthcare professionals and administrative staff with the relevant security permissions can access FGM information. 

The following table shows how to contact us about this service.

The following services are related to FGM-IS: