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Safeguarding children

A review of arrangements in the NHS for safeguarding children, published July 2009

University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB) is committed to the delivery of safe care to all children that access its services. While the Trust has no dedicated inpatient paediatric service, children and young people are seen and treated on an outpatient basis. By exception, children of less than 16 years of age may be treated as inpatients after full consultation with Birmingham Children's Hospital and in line with Trust policy and associated procedures on clinical management and safeguarding. 

As a response to the above review, and of the minimum requirements set out within it, UHB sets out its position against core standard C2, with which it is compliant.   The Trust has the following arrangements in place:

1.  There is a Board-level Executive Director with specific responsibility for safeguarding children

The Executive Chief Nurse is responsible for safeguarding and reports this to the Board as part of the quarterly Care Quality Report. Once a year the Board receives a full report on the safeguarding activity for the last 12 months.

2.   Named professionals are clear about their role and have the appropriate time and support systems in place in which to conduct their safeguarding duties

A named nurse and named doctor have been designated for the Trust. The named nurse is also the lead nurse for safeguarding for the Trust. Time is afforded to both roles to support the duties required.

3. The Trust meets the statutory requirements with regard to conducting Criminal Records Bureau checks

All staff recruited are subject to Criminal Records Bureau checks as part of their pre-employment checks

4. Child protection policies and systems are current and robust.  This should include systems for monitoring children who miss outpatient appointments and a system to identify children for whom there are safeguarding concerns

Child protection policies and systems are up to date, and include systems for following up on children who miss out patient appointments. There are clear processes for reporting children for whom there are safeguarding concerns

5. All eligible staff have undertaken safeguarding training at level 1 (basic awareness).  The Trust should review its additional safeguarding training conducted or promoted by the Trust

Safeguarding training at level 1 is provided for all staff on induction and level 2 training is provided for staff in clinical areas where children are seen. Two-yearly updates are provided to these staff. The Trust is reviewing its training arrangements through the Trust safeguarding group in light of the recent national safeguarding review.