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What Child Protection - Information Sharing (CP-IS) does

How CP-IS shares child protection information, manages data quality, and supports safeguarding across health and social care.

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Overview

The Child Protection - Information Sharing (CP-IS) service helps health and social care workers share information securely to better protect children and young people who are known to social care because they are:

  • looked after
  • or have a child protection plan

CP-IS links IT systems across health and social care in England to help organisations share information securely.

As it covers 100% of local authorities in England, it's the only national register of social care status, and the only system to provide information when a child is out of area.

It is already available to over 1,200 unscheduled health care sites (this refers to NHS care that couldn't have been expected or planned before someone contacted a healthcare provider, such as ambulance and emergency services). 

What information is available

What information is held for each patient

CP-IS holds the following information for each registered child or young person:

  • NHS number
  • details of their plan - type, start date and end date
  • details of the 25 most recent CP-IS information accesses from approved care settings in England
  • the name of the responsible local authority - together with their office hours phone and emergency duty contact numbers

All records in CP-IS are held against the patient's NHS number. It is therefore very important to use the correct NHS number for each patient.

Data quality

We have a CP-IS operations team who are responsible for maximising CP-IS data quality.

Our operations team:

  • hold data quality health check meetings with local authorities
  • monitor CP-IS uploads from local authorities and offer data quality assistance, where appropriate
  • assist with requests for NHS number matching
  • share updates and best practice at local authority user groups
  • providing guidance on maintaining relationships with health partners

To discuss data quality, please contact NHS England National Service Desk (NSD) by:

Local authorities should make regular checks of their data quality error logs.

Last edited: 5 August 2026 10:18 am