Joint website enables notification of a child’s hospital
admittance
Five local authorities are sharing an index of social care
records with the NHS in a bid to identify when vulnerable children
are admitted to hospital.
Hampshire County Council, Isle of Wight Council, Portsmouth City
Council, Southampton City Council and Winchester City Council have
developed a secure website that can be used to search for social
care records.
Although website users do not have access to the records, they
can spot whether any of the five authorities’ children’s services
departments hold care records.
Employees working at NHS accident and emergency units can notify
social workers at the different councils when vulnerable children
are admitted to hospital.
Hampshire County Council said, “NHS hospitals had great
difficulty in accessing social care information and equally social
services departments could not access NHS websites or systems.”
The joint child protection system first went live with the
Hampshire Shared Secure Environment when both Hampshire County
Council and Portsmouth City Council set up access to their care
record indices online. The councils set up a server to isolate
their social care systems from the users in the NHS.
When a search is made on a child’s name, the request is sent to
a Juniper Networks Neoteris reverse proxy appliance. The appliance
then passes the request on to the five councils’ social care
systems.
The care records systems confirm to the Neoteris device whether
they hold the records. The Neoteris device notifies the accident
and emergency units of the results.
With a reverse proxy appliance, the request for information is
made from the internet. With a proxy appliance, the request is made
from within the organisation’s firewall; the appliance is connected
to the internet rather than the device making the request.