Agenda item

At their meeting in April, the Children’s Safeguarding Policy and Performance Advisory Committee requested further sampling of referrals from Children’s Services are taken forward by Adult Services. Adult Services selected a sample of these referrals as part of their case file audit process to look at how Adult and Children’s Services are working together – especially in open cases.

 At the Committee meeting in April, Members had considered an audit concerning cases that had been referred to the Adults through the SOVA (Safeguarding of Vulnerable Adults) referral process. This audit sample did not encompass clients that are responsibility of Adults with Learning Difficulties, Drugs Alcohol Action team; Adults with Physical Disabilities and Adults service were further asked to complete a sample audit which included these service areas. The Committee noted that there were a total of 24 referrals sampled from Children’s services to Adult services for the period of 01 April 2012 to 31^st March 2013.  The Committee questioned the formula applied to the selection of the samples and it was noted that cases were chosen at random with the total number looked at was estimated to be a quarter of the referrals received.  Committee Members continued to consider the findings of the case file audit which was attached to the exempt part of the agenda. This included the date of the referral from Children’s services to Adult services and the actions that had been taken in relation to providing a service and   the outcome delivered.  The Acting Director of Adults services  highlighted that  that there were 5   episodes that were created on the system in error , these were abandoned as the  adult in question was likely to  already be  receiving a service and was known to the Adults service and therefore will already have a FWI file . The security attached around the Framework I system meant that you could not delete episodes once created without manager agreement. 

The committee were informed that the audits completed by the Adults Services will feed into the councils’ internal Quality Assurance Board and will be considered at call over reviews .This will allow findings to be assessed and to understand how working practices can be improved.

Although both Adults Services and Children’s services use Framework I to record episodes on case files, Adults services are not able to access children’s episodes.  The Committee were informed that the Framework I systems permissions were set to be revised, by October this year, to allow access to the children’s episode by Adult services. This would help improve access and analysis.

The Chair asked the Assistant Director to comment on the transition process between Adults and Children’s services. It was noted that the only issue identified was concerning the alignment between Adult services and Children’s services on Framework I which was to be resolved.

In response to a concern about the number of cases abandoned in error, this was attributed to data cleansing and did not reflect that the case had simply been discontinued. It was further explained that in some cases the clients name had been miss – spelt and this meant that a new case had to be created with the right name to avoid any confusion and potential duplication. In terms of data gathering for performance information, the Committee were assured that there is an awareness of duplication on FWI and this duplicated information is able to be filtered out when collating data for performance information.

Clarification was sought on the distinction between an Adult referral only and Adult referral with a child involved as the original premise for the referral from the Children’s services to Adult services indicates that a child is involved?  It was explained that in the case of an Adult referral, it was likely the case that the child was already receiving a service from the Children’s service and the Parent also required support from Adults services. The Independent Member reminded Members about the original focus of the audit which was to ensure that children will not be in a vulnerable position if their parents are receiving specialists type services from Adult Services. response, it was further clarified that the Adults only  referral will entail support to the Adult  but members were assured that  this does  not disclose the fact that Children’s service will have gone out and worked with the family in terms of the care for the child.

 The Committee noted that the files concerning substance miss-use were held by partner agencies and  there were particular permissions to be sought to obtain access to these files .The  Independent member  would liase with  Children’s services and  Public health partners on  an appropriate date to conduct the audit.

The Committee noted that a parent can seek independently support for a drug or alcohol addiction and therefore not be known to Children’s services In this case, the onus would be on the receiving service, health, to refer the family to Children’s services.