Health professionals urged to share child information

Health professionals should lower the threshold at which they seek information from other agencies over concerns about children and young people, according to new draft government guidance.

The cross government guidance, which has been published in the wake of public concerns over child protection issues and the Laming Enquiry into the death of Victoria Climbie, proposes a new two tier approach to information sharing by health professionals.

It says that if a GP or other health professional believes that a child may be at risk but they have insufficient evidence to justify a full disclosure of information, they should first contact other relevant professionals, without disclosing the substance of any concerns, to seek further information.

Having done that where a health professional is satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for believing that a child is being harmed as a result of abuse or neglect they should consider sharing substantive information.

The guidance states: “This approach is in response to the already high, and increasing, level of public concern that children should be properly protected from harm, arising from abuse or neglect.”

The guidance says the approach would be a change from existing practice which means that a health professional considering sharing information about children without consent must do so only where they are satisfied that there is an overriding public interest which justifies breaching the confidentiality of the child’s information.

The guidance states that the new approach will mean that there is disclosure of information, even at the first stage of the proposed two tier approach.

It adds: “Some confidential information will inevitably be disclosed simply by the health professional contacting other services. This will be the case regardless of whether the substance of their concern is divulged; the fact that the enquiry is taking place at all is by itself a disclosure.”

The guidance, which covers all adults working with children and young people including the police, education and social services as well as health, is now out for consultation until November 15.

A spokesperson for the British Medical Association told EHI Primary Care that the association would be responding to the consultation but no further details were available as yet.

Links

Cross government guidance- sharing information on children and young people