Annex A Requirements specification: Safeguarding Case Review Tracker

This document sets out the requirements for the Safeguarding Case Review Tracker and should be read alongside the Safeguarding Case Review Tracker Directions 2021.

Following the implementation of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, a revised Serious Incident Framework was published in March 2013 to reflect the changed structures in the NHS. At the time NHS England committed to review this Framework after a year of operation to understand how well the system was able to implement it. Therefore, over 2014 NHSE reviewed the Serious Incident Framework to ensure that it was fit for purpose and that it supported the need to take a whole-system approach to quality improvement. Following the review an updated Serious Incident Framework was published in 2015.

It links in with the ‘Safeguarding children, young people and adults at risk in the NHS England: Safeguarding accountability and assurance framework’ (SAAF 2015). This document sets out the responsibilities of all individuals working in providers of NHS funded Care and NHS commissioning organisations.  

The purpose of this data collection is to provide a facility for recording safeguarding case reviews in health care which have occurred as a result of a safeguarding failure. When safeguarding cases occur, they have to be reported so they can be identified correctly, investigated thoroughly and trigger actions that will prevent them from happening again.

In broad terms, serious Incidents are events in health care where the potential for learning is so great, or the consequences to patients, families and carers, staff or organisations are so significant, that they warrant using additional resources to mount a comprehensive response. Serious incidents can extend beyond situations which affect patients directly and include incidents which may indirectly impact patient safety or an organisation’s ability to deliver ongoing healthcare

NHS England provides a Safeguarding Case Review Tracker that enables the collection and analysis of information about Serious Incidents that have resulted from safeguarding failures. The data will be submitted into the Safeguarding Review Tracker by Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) in England.

Scope 

The scope of the collection is England.

Source

Data will be collected from all Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) to whom NHS England has issued a Data Provision Notice (DPN) by virtue of section 259 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012

Category

The information to be submitted by ICBs is data at record level as set out in the list below:

• ICB chief nurse assured regarding DHR health recommendations
• Regional chief content to accept HDR health recommendations
• Case open/closed status
• Date added
• Designated professional
• Designated professional initials
• Safeguarding partnership or board
• StEIS number/Local identifier
• Type of review
• Incident date
• Brief overview
• Abuse or vulnerability theme
• Media Interest
• Date of update
• Latest update
• Date report signed off
• Publication date
• Link to report
• Organisational learning
• Lessons learned
• Recommendations

Frequency 

On-going ‘live’ data collection with data extracted quarterly.

Internal processing

Some data validation will be required, for example to ensure the ‘Date added’ is not prior to the ‘incident date’, the ‘Date Incident closed’ is after the ‘incident date’, and that an ICB submitting data is a current ICB (has not closed, or merged)

In accordance with section 258 of the 2012 Act, NHS England has consulted with:

• The Department of Health and Social Care as the directing organisation and an end recipient of the Serious Incidents data, have and will on an ongoing basis be consulted on the specification, form, and period for the collection
• NHS England analytical teams as an end recipient of the data
• The Data Alliance Partnership Board (DAPB) in the development of the Safeguarding Case Review Tracker Information Standard

The collection has also been developed in consultation with NHS England North region, and NHS England Regional Safeguarding Leads.

Regular dissemination and sharing

ICBS will be able to log into the Safeguarding Case Review Tracker to update the data and cases they have added.  

NHS England will collate the data on a quarterly basis and disseminate this to analytical teams via NHS England’s Secure Electronic File Transfer (SEFT) Solution. NHS England will carry out any necessary analysis of the data and will use the data as part of wider patient safety and quality of care reporting.  

It is anticipated the data and learning derived from the system will be fed into a quarterly report shared with Regional Safeguarding Partnership Groups and will also be presented to the National Safeguarding Steering Group (NSSG).

Data Access Request Service (DARS)

Data will not be disseminated via the NHS England Data Access Request Service. 

Data to be published

NHS England is directed to not publish the information collected. 

The data will not be published into the public domain but will be included in a dashboard for assurance reporting purposes and will allow ICBs to provide assurance that they are meeting their statutory duties for the whole population in relation to safeguarding requirements and legislation.

Quarterly reports are shared with Regional Safeguarding Partnership Groups and the National Safeguarding Steering Group.

Data prohibited from being published

NHS England is directed to not publish the information collected.

NHS England’s Forms Platform is used to collect the data. The data is hosted, stored and processed within NHS England’s Amazon Web Service (cloud).  Authentication and authorisation is handled by the Strategic Data Collection Service (SDCS) Single Sign On (SSO) mechanism). ICBs will be able to log into the Safeguarding Case Review Tracker to edit and review data that they have submitted. ICB level users will have access to see all records which fall under their given ICB.  

Changes to this Specification will be managed in conjunction with the Department of Health and Social Care to ensure that any changes are within scope of the Safeguarding Case Review Tracker Directions 2021.