Safeguarding Children Using Population Health Data

Every year in England, nearly 400,000 children are formally recognised as being “in need” of social care support — around 1 in every 30 children ^[1]. Over 100,000 are subject to Child in Need (CIN) plans, with many more at risk but outside formal services.

Decades of reviews show that poor information sharing between agencies remains a recurring factor in cases of serious harm and death of children — when professionals only see fragments of a child’s history, decisions are weakened^[3].

Embedding a robust safeguarding children policy within a population health approach ensures that all agencies work from the same, consolidated data. By integrating information across health, social care, and education systems, professionals gain a unified, up-to-date view of each child’s safeguarding status. This shared insight enables earlier intervention, safer decisions, and more targeted support where it’s most needed.

Contact us today to find out more

The Challenge

Children identified as vulnerable — such as those on Child in Need or Child Protection plans — may be coded across multiple systems, yet not all professionals have visibility of the relevant alerts. To address this, safeguarding children policies and consistent safeguarding children training are essential to ensure that every practitioner understands their responsibilities and how to interpret shared information effectively.

Records must be compared and reconciled across health and social care to ensure every agency has an accurate understanding of a child’s current status. In addition, system-wide insight is needed to identify localities and practices with higher prevalence, enabling more targeted and effective support.

What Is Safeguarding Children: Graphnet Health's Solution

Graphnet enables safeguarding teams, Named GPs, General Practice, Social Care, and multi-agency partners to access a shared, trusted view of children at risk — underpinned by population health data and refreshed every 24 hours.

· Shared Care Record Insights: Use the breadth of data in the Shared Care Record to compare safeguarding alerts and confirm each child’s current status alongside key context.

· Patient Identifiable Reports: Provide detailed reports to General Practice so teams can quickly identify children subject to Child in Need or Child Protection Plans and correct coding where discrepancies exist - supporting effective case management and safer care.

· Social Care Integration: Mirror this approach in Social Care, where up-to-date primary care codes can inform local safeguarding work.

· Population-level analysis: Supply anonymised, population-level views for ICB safeguarding teams and Named GPs to spot patterns and focus resources where they are most needed.

· System-wide delivery: Deliver the solution at the system level for complete coverage and consistent application, with data refreshed every 24 hours.

The Impact & Benefits

· Unified, trusted data : A single view helps General Practice, Social Care and other agencies identify and support children on Child in Need and Child Protection Plans.

· Enhanced collaboration: Named GPs can work with social care, child protection conference chairs and wider professionals using the most current, matching data - enabling multi-agency safeguarding at the locality level.

· Real-time confidence: Current information (updated every 24 hours) improves confidence in decisions and reduces risk.

· Targeted intervention: Flexible views at any level of granularity (system, place, neighbourhood, practice) surface areas with higher rates for targeted intervention.

· Consistent access: System-wide deployment ensures every eligible professional who needs to can access the reports and act quickly.

Working Together for Safer Outcomes

By uniting safeguarding data through a population health approach, Graphnet Health helps organisations move from fragmented, reactive safeguarding to proactive, coordinated protection. With shared, up-to-date insight across health and social care, professionals can make faster, safer, and more confident decisions — ensuring that no child is overlooked because their information sits in isolation.

Talk to us today