Issue - meetings

To receive the outcome of the Rapid Health Needs Assessment for looked After Children requested by Ofsted.

The Committee considered a report on the outcomes of a rapid health needs assessment for LAC following on from recommendations from a recent joint Ofsted and Care Quality Council inspection. Confirmation was provided that the three specific health recommendations arising from the inspection had been completed within timescale. As part of this, a health assessment based on a workshop session with ten young people had been carried out at which they shared their experiences of health and health services. It was caveated that comments arising from the session referred back to the previous system of health assessments carried out by GPs as opposed to the new Children in Care (CiC) nursing team introduced in January 2011.

The Committee expressed concern on some of the results from the assessment which identified that the particular group of young people questioned felt that there was a lack of preparation for leaving care and that they had received little or no information on health issues. There were also concerns that the recommendations arising from the assessment were not explicit enough and that further assurances were required on the arrangements for monitoring implementation of these recommendations. It was confirmed that implementation would be under the remit of the LAC multi-agency group with activity to be captured in the multi-agency LAC Action Plan, performance of which was subject to monitoring by the Committee. It was also confirmed that the recommendations would be translated into more tangible actions under the Plan and strengthened.