Agenda item
Health Annual Report of Looked After Children - 2018/19
This is the sixth Looked After Children (LAC) Annual Report provided to NHS Brent Clinical Commissioning Group (BCCG) written in response to the statutory guidance, ‘Promoting the health and well-being of looked-after children’ (2015).
It covers the period from 1st April 2018 to 31st March 2019. The LAC Annual Report forms part of Brent CCGs assurance arrangements, in relation to Looked After Children and wider Safeguarding Children arrangements. The report includes information about service performance and sets out the objectives and priorities for the coming year.
Minutes:
This report provided the Looked After Children Annual Report covering the period from 1st April 2018 to 31st March 2019. The report formed part of Brent CCGs assurance arrangements in relation to Looked After Children and wider Safeguarding Children arrangements. It outlined information about service performance and objectives and priorities for the following year.
Brigid Offley-Shore (Designated Nurse for Looked After Children, Brent CCG) highlighted the summary of key messages. Some achievements during the reporting period were: a stable workforce during the reporting period; good dialogue between Brent CCG and the CYP department; and 96.4% of looked after children had received their statutory health assessments. Work picked up from the 2017 SEND inspection included health action plan tracking which was now embedded into the emotional support work for looked after children.
Brigid pointed to data from paragraph 5.1 of the report regarding Brent Looked After Children placement types and locations, noting that 62% of looked after children were male and 37% were female. There had been 2 audits in 2018/19 including a Looked After Children health provider records audit where areas of good practice and areas for improvement were identified.
In the ensuing discussions, care leavers highlighted the importance of having a 1:1 during their health check without carers present. Esther Power (Lead Nurse for Looked After Children, Brent CCG) confirmed that health assessors should be explaining to the young person and carer what would happen, receive consent to conduct the assessment and then see the young person separately from their carer for assessment. Anything that was spoken about at the assessment was recorded in a report and made available to care leavers. It was added that during the recent focused visit the latter was highlighted as an area for improvement, so Brent CCG were ensuring care leavers were getting copies of their health summaries. Care leavers also highlighted that health reports had been sent to their foster carer and not themselves and highlighted difficulties in accessing information when they had contacted health centres. Duncan Ambrose (Assistant Director, Brent CCG) expressed that they heard the importance of the issue and would pick it up.
As part of discussions regarding health checks, care leavers suggested that there should be a booklet for young people to read through prior to the health check to prepare them for what to expect. It was agreed that this was something Care Leavers In Action and Brent CCG would work on together to develop. Brigid Offley-Shore also highlighted the booklet being devised to highlight to care leavers where they could access healthcare, which would be shared with Care Leavers In Action for suggestions.
Committee members highlighted that the issues highlighted in the discussion were listed in audit recommendations within the report, and queried the action plan for those recommendations as the issues had been raised previously. Duncan Ambrose explained that actions were assessed through the CCG Quality Assurance Committee with multiagency oversight. The report had been to that committee and accepted and responsibility now sat with them. Challenge was brought through Brent Children’s Trust and its subgroups.
As no further issues were raised the Committee RESOLVED:
i) To note the report and recommendations.
ii) To receive an update in 6 months time regarding the actions agreed relating to the creation of guidance for health checks.
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