5.5.1 Health Care Assessments and Health Care Plans |
SCOPE OF THIS CHAPTER
This procedure applies to all Looked After Children.
It summarises the arrangements that should be made for the promotion, assessment and planning of health care for Looked After children.
See also Revised Statutory Guidance on Promoting the Health and Well-being of Looked After Children, 2009.
AMENDMENTS
This Chapter was significantly amended December 2011, colleagues should familiarise themselves with the whole Chapter.
Contents
1. Health Care Assessments
The purpose of Health Care Assessments is to promote children’s physical and mental health and to inform the child’s Health Plan.
1. Frequency of Health Care Assessments
Each Looked After child must have a Health Care Assessment soon after becoming Looked After, then at specified intervals as set out below.
In Brighton and Hove Initial Health Care assessments will be conducted by a suitably qualified specialist nurse, who should provide the Social Worker with a written report (see Arrangements for Health Care Assessments). Supervision of these assessments will be provided by the Community Paediatrician.
- The first Assessment must be conducted within a month of the child first becoming Looked After - usually in time for the first Looked After Review;
- For children under five years, further Review Health Care Assessments should occur at least once every six months;
- For children aged over five years, further Review Health Care Assessments should occur at least annually.
If a child is transferred from one Looked After Placement to another, it is not necessary to plan an assessment within the first month. In these circumstances, the Social Worker should provide the new Carer with a copy of the child’s Health Assessment and Health Care Plan.
If no plan exists, the Social Worker should inform the Looked After Child Health Team so that a Health Assessment can be arranged within a month of the placement so that a Health Plan can be developed.
2. Arranging Health Care Assessments
The Social Worker should make a referral to the Looked After Children’s (LAC) Health Team as soon as child/young person becomes Looked After. The LAC Health Team will then arrange the Initial Health Assessment with a Looked After Children Nurse or the child’s GP. Children with Permanency Plans (adoption) up to the age of nine will be reviewed by the Community Paediatrician; children over the age of nine will be seen dependent on clinical need.
Before a Health Assessment takes place, Social Workers must ensure a ‘Consent For Treatment’ has been signed by parent/ person with parental responsibility for the child/young person. The Social worker needs to inform the parent/carer that an initial health assessment will occur in accordance with statutory guidance.
The LAC Health Team will send copies of the BAAF Consent form ‘Consent By Birth Parent or Child/Young Person or Agency/Other With Parental Responsibility/ies For Obtaining and Sharing of Health Information’ to the Social Worker to have signed by the parent or person with parental responsibility for the child /young person.; this is to enable the LAC Health Team to seek medical information on the child’s behalf. For children under five years the LAC Health Team will send the Parental Health Questionnaire (BAAF PH Form) to the Social Worker to ask parents to complete.
The LAC Health Team will complete a Health Report and Develop a Health Plan, copies of which will be sent to Social Worker, Foster Carer/ Kinship carer/residential unit, parent school nurse/Health Visitor and GP.
2. Health Plans
Each Looked After Child’s initial health assessment must incorporate a Health Plan in time for the first Looked After Review, with arrangements as necessary incorporated into the child’s Placement Plan/Placement Information Record.
This Health Plan must be reviewed after each subsequent Health Care Assessment or as circumstances change.
Routine programme immunisation childhood.
Each routine vaccination is given as a single injection into the muscle of the thigh or upper arm.
Click here to view Routine Childhood Immunisations from November 2010 Table.
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