Carol Mckenna, Chief Officer of the Kirklees Clinical Commissioning Group will attend to speak to the Board about the role of the Corporate Parent.
Contact:
Carol Mckenna, Chief Officer - Kirklees Clinical Commissioning Group
Minutes:
The Board considered a verbal update on the Role of the Corporate Parent presented by Carol McKenna, Chief Officer, Kirklees Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) which highlighted the following key points:
· There was a collective responsibility across a range of organisations to safeguard and promote the life chances of Children Looked After and Care Leavers.
· There was a commitment to hear the voice of the child / young person and to meet their health needs.
· There were statutory responsibilities to meet the needs of Children Looked After and Care Leavers through commissioned services, both universal and more bespoke packages of care.
· There was a responsibility to meet the needs of Kirklees children living out of area, as well as children coming into Kirklees.
· Work was being done with the public health team to help with profiling and identifying the health needs of the Children Looked After population.
· Collaborative working with partner agencies would ensure effective support was provided to children / young people.
· Monitoring of activity would ensure statutory responsibilities were fulfilled.
· Some statutory services for Children Looked After were commissioned from local providers.
· There was a full safeguarding team for both adults and children within the Clinical Commissioning Group.
· The Designated Nurse and Children Looked After Team were responsible for:
o initiating and co-ordinating health assessments within 20 days of a child being received into care.
o reviewing health assessments, 6 monthly for children under 5 and annually for children above 5.
o providing training and support to other practitioners.
o providing health advice and support to a range of people and services.
· There were robust governance arrangements in place within the Clinical Commissioning Group which included reporting to the Locala safeguarding committee and regular reporting to the Corporate Parenting Board.
· There was also a quality committee within the Clinical Commissioning Group where the annual report for Children Looked After was shared.
· There were a range of muti-agency arrangements in place as well as more specialist arrangements in relation to emotional and mental health, particularly for unaccompanied asylum seeker children.
· There were a range of Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) in place in relation to Children Looked After and audit work had been carried out in relation to quality and improvement.
· There were pressures on the CAMHS services. Dedicated clinicians worked within the placement support team but there had been some challenges in relation to the recruitment and retention of staff.
· An improvement plan was being developed jointly between CCG commissioners and the placement support team.
· There was a clear understanding of where further improvements were needed and how services were operating.
· Commissioned services were effective and had a positive impact, services were accessible and supported health needs to be met.
The Board acknowledged the presentation and the complexities of the information shared. The Board highlighted that the health needs of children and young people had been addressed but questioned how Care Leavers were ensured education, training or employment and what opportunities could be provided?
Carol Mckenna responded and shared conversations were ongoing in relation to what more could be done to support children and young people and to provide those educational opportunities as well as growing the workforce. Gill Addy, Designated Nurse for Looked After Children further shared how the Clinical Commissioning Group and Health Teams worked together and advised that co-location with the Local Authority enabled good communication and understanding of what the services were doing and how they were working. The Board agreed this was a good model of partnership work, highlighting that it wasn’t static, which made it a strong multi agency approach.
RESOLVED: The Board noted the update on the Role of the Corporate Parent and thanked Carol McKenna, Chief Officer, Kirklees Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) for attending.