A ‘first of type’ SystmOne Child Protection – Information Sharing (CP-IS) pilot tested functionality at Leigh NHS Walk-in Centre and showed the benefits of providing clinicians with child protection or safeguarding matters involving patients.
CP-IS is a system that enables child protection information to be shared securely between local authorities and NHS trusts across England using the NHS Digital Spine. Bridgewater began collaborative work with both TPP and NHS Digital in November 2016 to be the ‘first of type’ deployment of CP-IS functionality integrated with SystmOne. As a result TPP has now been granted full roll out approval for this functionality.
Staff at Bridgewater Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (Bridgewater), one of the country’s largest community NHS trusts, have led the way in testing the use of shared child protection information in an unscheduled care environment. This is fully integrated into their TPP SystmOne clinical records system and presents the information when a patient is registered for treatment in a service without any further interaction or searches in separate systems.
Cath Partington Acting Clinical Service Manager at Leigh Walk-in Centre said: “Staff in the walk-in centre have really seen the benefit of the CP-IS flag and information on SystmOne. A clinician has around 10 minutes to assess a patient’s history and make important clinical decisions and this additional information relating to child protection and safeguarding on the electronic patient record can be invaluable in supporting decisions to be made in the patient’s best interest.
“As an urgent care service many patients and their carers attend the Walk-In Centre on a one-off basis with a minor illness or injury. The system shares information recorded outside of our local area to give a much fuller history when treating potentially vulnerable patients.”
Bridgewater Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust provides services across the North West of England including two Walk-In Centres, one Urgent Care Centre and two GP Out of Hours services. The Trust plans to enable the functionality across all these sites now full roll out approval has been given by NHS Digital.
Bridgewater Chief Executive Colin Scales said: “The impact of giving our clinicians critical child protection and safeguarding information where treatment of vulnerable patients is concerned cannot be underestimated. Thanks to the hard work of our IT team and frontline staff working in partnership with TTP, we are now in a position where we can roll the CP-IS functionality out to our other urgent care services.”
Dr John Parry, Clinical Director, TPP, said “We’re delighted to be rolling out the CP-IS integration after a successful pilot with Bridgewater Community Healthcare. CP-IS is a vital national initiative, and we wholeheartedly support its aim of connecting local authority and NHS organisations together to ensure more holistic care. Ultimately the ability to readily recognise vulnerable children assists clinicians in saving lives.”
