Agenda item

Purpose: to present the West Berkshire LSCB Annual Report and SARC protocol to the Board.

Stephen Barber introduced himself as the Chairman to the Local Safeguarding Children’s Board (LSCB) and drew the Board’s attention to the LSCB Annual Report for 2012/13. He reported that LSCBs were established as part of the Children Act 2004 and brought together statutory partners in order to provide safeguarding and promote the welfare of children. The Annual Report was based on the latest guidance for safeguarding children and young people.

Stephen Barber highlighted some of the challenges being faced by the LSCB, one of which was General Practitioner (GP) participation. He made a plea to the Board to urge CCGs to ensure GPs contributed to child protection processes, including providing reports for those children who attended child protection conferences. Stephen Barber stressed that GPs would most likely have the longest contact with these children and therefore were well positioned to provide necessary information. A nurse had been recruited to help GPs meet this demand. Stephen Barber confirmed that ideally GPs should provide reports for 100% of children involved in child protection conferences.

Stephen Barber referred to the Identification and Referral to Improve Safety (IRIS) project. Domestic abuse was a large contributing factor to children being at put at risk and the IRIS Project was a general practice based training support and referral programme to help GPs be more aware of domestic abuse. Stephen Barber stressed that the take up of the IRIS Project in West Berkshire was very low. He understood that GPs had little time to spare for training however, stressed that IRIS training was only two hours long.

Lise Llewellyn suggested that IRIS training be delivered as part of protected practice time. Bal Bahia reported he was aware of safeguarding training which had taken place in 2012 amongst GPs and it had been extremely successful.

Stephen Barber stated that ideally they would want 100% of GPs to carry out the IRIS training although he acknowledged that practicalities made it difficult. It was however, essential that GPs knew how to signpost patients if they suspected they were being subjected to domestic abuse.

RESOLVED that the Health and Wellbeing Board noted the challenges faced by the LSCB and would communicate these where necessary.

Stephen Barber moved onto his second item regarding Sexual Assault Referral Centres (SARCs). There were two SARCs in the Thames Valley and the most accessible from West Berkshire was the centre in Slough. SARCs were usually for adults however, the one in Slough was for children.

Stephen Barber drew the Board’s attention to the Protocol on page 55 of the agenda, which was for information sharing arrangements between the Thames Valley LSCBs, NHS England and the SARCs. Largely the protocol dealt with how information on children using the SARC was passed to the relevant authorities such as the Police Force or the Local Authority. It was important that the relevant authorities were informed immediately if children were treated in the SARC. The LSCB also needed to be made aware for performance information purposes. Stephen Barber concluded that he would be taking the Protocol to a number of Boards across Berkshire to raise awareness and gain support.

RESOLVED that the Board noted the SARC Protocol.

Councillor Graham Pask stated as Chairman of the West Berkshire Partnership (WBP) that domestic abuse was a key issue that many partners were trying to address. The WBP were looking at the likely causes of domestic abuse and in particular were focusing on the theme of alcoholism.  Councillor Gwen Mason commented there was a well established forum in West Berkshire called the Domestic Abuse Forum, who were next meeting that afternoon and she would raise the SARC Protocol.