By Anna Whittaker, Local Democracy Reporter
Only one in ten health assessments for children going into care are being completed on time in Nottinghamshire.
Rules state 90 per cent of Initial Health Assessments (IHA) must be completed within 20 working days of a child entering care.
But in Nottinghamshire, health providers and the council are managing to hit the target in just 10 per cent of cases.
The issue was discussed at the Corporate Parenting Panel on July 18 at Nottinghamshire County Council.
Katherine Browne, Senior Public Health and Commissioning Manager at the authority, said there are delays in social care making referrals to the medical provider to complete the assessment.
Council papers say there is “insufficient capacity to meet the demand across some of the Health Teams”.
Ms Browne said: “Our performance around Initial Health Assessments does need that real partnership input into improving our timeliness.
“When a young person comes into care, social care is required to refer to a medical provider to ensure an Initial Health Assessment is undertaken.
“That needs to be completed within 20 days.
“Locally we have an agreed timeframe that social care will refer to the health provider within five days.
“At the moment, only 10 per cent of our children and young people do receive that initial health assessment within the timescale.
“The factors that are influencing that are the timeliness of referrals. In the last quarter around 40 per cent of our referrals went to the health provider within the five days.
“Our health providers have some challenges in terms of capacity within their teams.
“The Integrated Care Board (ICB) is committed to working with local authorities and health providers to drive improvements.
“They have convened workshops to understand what the root cause is.”
Ms Browne added that a different requirement, Review Health Assessments (RHA), which gather information about a child’s emotional and physical health, are completed on time 65 per cent of the time.
The assessment includes a report including health recommendations and an action plan.
Cllr Anne Callaghan (Lab) said: “The timeframe isn’t great, is it?
“It’s about working more collaboratively with health services to see what we can do.
“It’s about capacity issues for services.”
Cllr Sam Smith (Con) said: “What work is being done with Derbyshire and statistical neighbours?”
Ms Browne replied: “I don’t think Derbyshire is hitting their statutory timescales but they are performing better than us in comparison.
“We have met with them to understand what processes they have put in place to drive improvement.
“The ICB has a new designated nurse for looked after children who starts this week.
“This is a priority within the ICB, the chief nurse is aware of this risk and asking partners to report to her regularly.”
Council documents stated: “Most children and young people become looked after because of abuse and neglect.
“Although they have many of the same health needs as their peers, they may also have additional health care needs and the extent of these is often greater because of the impact of their past adverse experiences.
“They are also more likely to have not been taken to health appointments or screenings, or supported with medication.”
Other factors for delays in assessments include sickness and vacancy rates within health teams, incomplete referrals and young people not attending medical appointments.
