McKesson company to roll out system drawing attention to at-risk youngsters accessing health services
Following the Government’s approval of the Child Protection Information Sharing project (CP-IS), Liquidlogic has been appointed as a development partner by the Department of Health.
Following Health Minister, Dr Dan Poulter’s, approval of the initiative in December, the system will be introduced to flag to healthcare staff where a young person is the subject of a child protection plan or is looked after by a local authority.
It will apply in unscheduled health settings, such as emergency departments, GP out-of-hours services, walk-in centres, ambulance services, and on maternity and paediatric wards and will also display, the contact details of the children’s social care teams.
Jim Sullivan, sales director of Liquidlogic, a McKesson company, said: “CP-IS is a significant step forward in secure information sharing and, ultimately, child protection. Where there is a pattern of abuse, effective and secure information sharing is essential to protect children and to facilitate closer inter-agency working. CP-IS will be a valuable tool in this work.”
As part of the new process, a log of those who have viewed the child protection plan, or looked-after status for a child, and where, will also be retained for both social care and healthcare staff, enabling them to confirm whether a child has been visiting a range of unscheduled healthcare settings, regardless of geographical location, and this could be an indication of ongoing abuse and neglect. This will only apply to children who are subject to a child protection plan or looked-after children and comes in the wake of the Baby P abuse case.
As part of its contract, Liquidlogic is working on the ‘first wave’ of pilot sites, which are scheduled to go live in spring 2014. A second phase to include additional geographical areas will then follow.
