The Children Act 2004was passed following the
government's formal response to the report into the death
ofVictoria
Climbié, providing the legislative spine for
more effective and accessible services for children, young people
and families.
Shortly afterwards, the
Children's National Service Framework (CNSF) was published,
incorporating Every
Child Matters: Change for Children.
Social care for children
The Every Child Matters initiative aimed to make it easier to
monitor children from birth to age 19, but it did not fully address
how to effectively share data. We are only now seeing these bodies
come together to use IT to better protect the young and vulnerable,
but this will be impossible until there is adequate funding and
stringent protocols.
The social housing sector could be more proactive, and
improvements could be made by examining working practices. The Anti
Social Behaviour and Supporting People agenda has meant that social
housing bodies are collecting sensitive data, but they are not yet
sufficiently integrated to share this.
The first stumbling block is the
Data
Protection Act. The Victoria Climbié Inquiry stated, "Unless a
child is deemed to be in need of protection, information cannot be
shared between agencies without staff running the risk that their
actions are unlawful."
The CNSF acknowledges this problem, but it does not offer clear
guidelines on improving communication between the NHS and social
care organisations.
The
NHS National Programme for IT is attempting to deal with some
of these issues with its Integrated Care Records Service, which
hopes to implement fully-integrated, patient-centric records across
healthcare and social services.
But few councils and associated bodies have moved on information
sharing. Currently, explicit patient consent is required, which is
too time-consuming. Moreover, in the case of an allegedly abused
child, how likely is it that the guardian will grant access to the
records?
Another decision is what patient identifier should be used by
health and social care organisations. The NHS number has been
recommended, but this requires access to the
NHS Strategic Tracing Service. The government has not yet
stated whether social housing organisations are to be granted this
access.
Connectivity to NHSnet is no longer an issue, as social services
departments now have "NHS entity" status. However, developing
interoperability standards requires sustained government
attention.
Opportunities for IT
IT suppliers will respond if there is a proven market for their
services. Scanning, indexing, cross-referencing and pulling
together all social care, social housing and healthcare data on a
single client on to one screen is quite simple, and requires no
technology development or additional funds.
It would be a shame if plans for information sharing were
scrapped, but it is looking a possibility.
Ian Lever is director of social housing consultancy at NCC
Group