2. NEWHAM CCG AUDIT:
CHILD PROTECTION REFERRALS AND CONFERENCES
AUDIT 2014
Context and framework
The London Borough of Newham introduced an
electronic referral portal for safeguarding children
referrals last year. Significant Case Reviews often show
that poor communication has led to a child death and the
portal has the potential to improve timely
communication between primary acre and social care.
All the safeguarding leads from all the practices in
Newham attended training which included an
explanation and demonstration of the new portal. The
safeguarding leads were then tasked to take this
training back to their own practices. The audit was to
assess how well this training had penetrated the primary
care community and how many practices were using the
portal.
3. Purpose
This audit was designed as an opportunity for
Newham CCG to consider how;
primary care staff use the appropriate referral
pathways for safeguarding children
How these referrals are acknowledged and acted on
by social care,
How this action is communicated to the referrer.
4. Findings
The results of the audit are included with this report.
In total 19 practices out of 61 answered the survey
despite a concerted effort to send the survey out on
e-mail on 2 occasions and reminders at practice
council meetings.
Overall Findings
Of the 19 practices who answered the survey 5 had used
the portal during the survey period.7 practices had been
invited to a child protection conference during the period.5
had received acknowledgements within one day of making
the referral. This concurs with the use of the portal which
electronically confirms receipt of the referral within one day
while other methods are unable to do this. At the time of
the audit 4 practices had received outcomes on the
referrals made. Finally 11 of the practices had provided
reports for child protection conferences during the survey
period.
5. Recommendations
Repeat the audit over a longer period with strong
encouragement for all practices to complete the questions via
their safeguarding lead. In this audit the time period was too
short and we therefore do not know if all 19 practices are using
the portal but did not make a referral within the time frame of
the audit or if some are not using the portal.
Initiate new audit to specifically enquire about knowledge and
use of the portal within practices, focussing on who has been
trained and asking for qualitative feedback on using the portal.
Repeat training to safeguarding leads and then follow this up
with a check e-mail to ask how they are doing and if they are
ensuring the portal is always used in their practice.
Offer training on completing reports for child protection
conferences, followed by a quality audit of the reports to ensure
effective communication. This could be an e-learning module
that could be completed and then certificates e-mailed into the
safeguarding team to ensure that the module has been
completed.
6. NSCB Multi Agency Audit
Feb - March 2014
Quality of referrals received by triage
and feedback received
7. Context and framework
This multi agency audit was commissioned by the Performance
and Quality Assurance sub group of the Newham Safeguarding
Children Board. The sub group is charged with undertaking 3
multi-agency audits within 18 months.
This will be the 2nd audit of this cycle. A general terms of
reference has been established and agreed by individual audit
leads.
The framework will support the PQA sub group to provide a
baseline of performance and identify areas of good practice
and where improvements may be required.
Emerging themes will provide a basis for further and possibly
more focused audit activity.
8. Purpose
The audit was designed with the purpose of assessing the
quality of requests made to Newham Children’s Triage
Service and to test:
If feedback was being received by referring agency.
The outcome of the requests to determine if a consistent
threshold was applied.
Progression of referrals from Triage to the Assessment
Service and whether feedback was provided to the referrer
on the outcome of the assessment.
9. Overall Findings
77% of audits were judged to have achieved standards.
27 of the 30 referrals were considered to have the correct outcome.
The 3 cases where the auditors did not agree with the decision were
addressed after the audit with Triage and the decision-making was then
judged to have been correct:
DV case 1. Established that this was one out of 6 referrals within a short period and
that a home screening visit was carried out. Child was spoken to alone as were
both parents though dad was not spoken to about the impact of his behaviour on
child. However, there have been no further referrals since January 2014.
DV case 2. It was established that this case had been followed up with police and
been passed to the safeguarding assessment
Auditor believed that the case should have been referred to the Families First
team. Triage advised that it did not meet the criteria they had been given
(ASB or non school attendance) but that they would pass the referral to
Families First Service Manager as the issue was raised by one of the team
members
10. Recommendations
Feedback needs to be consistently received by referrers from Triage in order to inform their work
with the family, child or young person. The feedback received post assessment is the area
requiring most improvement.
While the completion of child and referrer details was strong at over 90%, only 67% compliance
has been recorded for the required contact details of the child or parent/carer. If the team are
unable to contact a family then the process of responding to a concern may be delayed.
An area for improvement is informing parents/carers of the request for support being submitted,
where it is safe to do so. This will enable the process that follows to be transparent and a
understanding of where the concerns have arisen from to be seen by the family being offered
support.
Information submitted by the referrer regarding the child’s needs, quality of parenting or the
family environment also requires improvement. The information recorded here is crucial to the
evaluation made by the triage service, enhancing the quality of the decision making. Information
provided here is essential for ensuring the child or family receives the right service at the right
time.
Not all agencies are using the portal to refer cases to triage. Key agencies require specific
training to access the portal and consideration should be given to closing all other referral routes.
This will improve the feedback rate to practitioners as the system offers an automatic response
