Safeguarding Children Declaration

The organisation meets statutory requirements in relation to Criminal Records Bureau Checks.
 
The Trust maintains a policy for the Disclosure of Criminal Background of those with Access to Patients along with an associated procedure under which managers have a specific responsibility to ensure compliance with the CRB Disclosure Code of Practice. CRB checks are mandatory for all eligible new staff in line with the Department of Health's Standards for Better Health.
 

• Job applicants, who will have access to patients in the course of their normal duties, are subject to a CRB disclosure check once the selection process has been completed
  

• Employment declaration forms are used as part of the recruitment process.
  
  

• Staff responsible for caring for, or having contact with, children are subject to an enhanced disclosure check and check against the Protection of Children Act (POCA) list.
  
  

• Staff responsible for the direct care of patients but who do not regularly care for or have contact with children are subject to the enhanced disclosure check.
  
  

• Staff with no patient contact in the course of their normal duties do not require a disclosure check.
  

Staff with access to patient areas (i.e to deliver goods) are required to disclose any unspent convictions on the Declaration Form. Child Protection Policies and systems are up to date and robust, including a process for following up children who miss outpatient appointments and a system for flagging children for whom there are safeguarding concerns.

The Trust has in place a process for the follow up of children who have missed an outpatient appointment. This involves a consultant review of the medical records and appropriate follow up. To date, this has been a separate procedure and not formed part of the Trust Policy for Managing the Risks Associated with Safeguarding Children. Following the completion of the Healthcare Commission (now Care Quality Commission) toolkit in March 2009, the Trust identified that this policy would need to be updated to ensure that all relevant procedures are included. This review is now well underway and is due to be presented to the Clinical Governance Committee and Executive Committee for approval and ratification during October/November 2009. All eligible staff have undertaken and are up to date with safeguarding training at level 1. In addition, a review of training arrangements should be undertaken within 6 months.

Level 1 training is available for all eligible staff. A review of safeguarding children training requirements was undertaken between May - July 2009. This resulted in the development of a comprehensive Training Needs Analysis, which sets out the training requirements for all levels of staff within the organisation. This was approved by the Clinical Governance Committee in July 2009. The training records are held centrally. However, in order to measure performance (in terms of uptake of training) effectively, the Trust is currently in the process of identifying the numbers of staff requiring each level of training. Once this information is available, the uptake of training will be monitored closely via the Performance Management Review Process. Designated and/or named professionals are clear about their role and have sufficient time to undertake it.

The Designated Doctor, Named Doctor and the Named Nurse are all very clear about their role in the safeguarding of children; each has a job description taken from their respective Royal Colleges, which clearly sets out their roles and responsibilities. Job plans are annually reviewed and each member of the team is subject to annual appraisal. The Trust has acknowledged that further resource is required within the Child Protection Team. A business case to address this is currently in development and is due to be taken to the Commissioners for approval. There are plans to draw up a specific SLA with the PCTs with regard to the role of the Designated Doctor. There is a Board level Executive Director for Safeguarding across the organisation at least once a year and has robust audit programmes to assure that safeguarding systems and processes are working.

The Executive Medical Director has overall responsibility for Safeguarding Children across the organisation. In addition to the audits against the recommendations made by Lord Laming, time has been allocated within the audit programme for some further more specific audits to be undertaken. The Clinical Audit Department will be involved in the design of these audits, which will be reported to the Trust Clinical Governance Committee, who will also take responsibility for oversight of the implementation of the action plan. The Board reviews Safeguarding Arrangements at least once a year. The Child Protection Steering Group reports to the Clinical Governance Committee, where minutes of meetings are received. The Training Strategy and Annual Report are presented to the Clinical Governance Committee on an annual basis. The Clinical Governance Committee and the Executive Committee regard matters relating to the safeguarding of children as a top priority and so receive regular updates on progress against national recommendations and local risk assessment related action plans.