Child Safeguarding

Every year in England, nearly 400,000 children are formally recognised as being “in need” of children’s social care support (equivalent to about 1 in every 30 children) [1]. Of those, over 100,000 children are subject to Child in Need (CIN) plans [2] and many more may be at risk but fall outside formal services. Decades of reviews and case studies show that poor information sharing between agencies is a recurring contributing factor in serious harm and death of children - when professionals hold only fragments of a child’s case history, decision-making is weakened [3].

By consolidating data across health, social care and other agencies into a unified, up-to-date view, professionals can better match, verify and act on safeguarding alerts - ensuring that no child slips through the cracks just because their records live in silos.
By bringing together records from across care systems, every professional has a single, current view of a child’s safeguarding status. This enables earlier intervention, safer decisions and targeted support in the right places.

The challenge

Children may be coded as vulnerable (Child in Need or Child Protection) across multiple systems, but not all professionals can see the relevant alerts.
Records need to be compared and reconciled across health and social care, so everyone understands a child’s current status.
System-wide insight is required to highlight localities and practices with higher prevalence for additional, targeted support.

Our solution

Use the breadth of data in the Shared Care Record to compare safeguarding alerts and confirm each child’s current status alongside key context.
Provide Patient Identifiable 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.
Mirror this approach in Social Care, where up-to-date primary care codes can inform local safeguarding work.
Supply anonymised, population-level views for ICB safeguarding teams and Named GPs to spot patterns and focus resources where they are most needed.
Deliver the solution at system level for complete coverage and consistent application, with data refreshed every 24 hours.

Impact and benefits

A single, trusted view helps General Practice, Social Care and other agencies identify and support children on Child in Need and Child Protection Plans.
Named GPs can collaborate with social care, child protection conference chairs and wider professionals using the most current, matching data - enabling multi-agency safeguarding at locality level.
Current information (updated every 24 hours) improves confidence in decisions and reduces risk.
Flexible views at any level of granularity (system, place, neighbourhood, practice) surface areas with higher rates for targeted intervention.
Consistent, system-wide deployment ensures every eligible professional who needs to can access the reports and act quickly.