Child Protection - Information Sharing National Care Records Service: user guide

1. Insert your smartcard into the reader

2. Enter your passcode

3. Select your role. 

4. Click on the icon on your desk or use the favourite saved in your browser.  Alternatively, you can launch the National Care Records Service directly by clicking on the launch summary care record link  https://portal.spineservices.nhs.uk/nationalcarerecordsservice

5. The NCRS landing page will appear; asking you to confirm the role you want to use (If you have more than one).  

6. Assuming the role has been correctly identified, click Confirm and continue to find patient link.

7. You will be taken to the Find a Patient screen. 

Use the NHS number, or switch to the basic search tab to find a patient using minimum search criteria: gender, surname and date of birth.

2. If you don’t have all the information required for a basic search you can use the advanced search. For example, if you don’t know the NHS Number or the date of birth of the patient, you can enter a date of birth range on the advanced screen.

3. The advanced search fields are the same as the mandatory fields and include gender, surname and date of birth.  If you do not know the full spelling of the patient's surname you can use a partial spelling, you will need a minimum of 3 letters from the surname with a wild card*  for example Smith would be Smi* or *ith.  Or if you are unclear of the spelling you can tick the widen search box, this searches for common mis-spellings. 

4. If you do not know a specific date of birth you can use date ranges. If you use the date of birth function you must also use an additional search criteria such as first name or postcode. 

For example if you know the year and month of birth then you can use that in the birth from option for example if you use 08-2011 (August 2011) the system will look for any patient record that matches the search criteria who was also born in August 2011.  You can also search by year of birth for example 2011 or a range of years for example 2011 to 2014. 

5. Once you have found the patient the overview screen will be displayed..

6. Use the find a patient to begin a new search, if required. 

7. If there is CP-IS information available, the Child protection alert present tab will be clearly visible, highlighted orange.

8. If there is no CPI-IS information available, the Child Protection tab will not be visible.

When you click the child protection tab, the following information will be displayed

• the current child protection information
• contact details for the relevant local authority
• a list of previous accesses under the page views heading

The CP-IS Information that is shared will only be start date/ end date to indicate that a CPP exists, and/ or, that the child is a looked after child, and not the full plan details.

The CP-IS Information displayed will include.

Type of plan

1. Child Protection Plan (CPP)
2. Looked After Child (LAC)
3. Unborn Child Protection Plan (UCPP)

It is possible for multiple plans to be associated with a single NHS Number. An example of this is shown above.

Start date

A start date will always be displayed.

End date

An end date will always be displayed. CPP’s and LAC’s are displayed for 364 days after the end date. UCPP’s are displayed for 28 days after the end date. The latest end date for a CPP/LAC is the child’s 18th birthday. The end date for a UCPP is the due date of the baby.

Responsible local authority 

This is the local authority that initially uploaded the plan information to Spine.  

Emergency duty telephone number

LA contact numbers. It is mandatory for this to be provided by the local authority.

Office hours telephone number

This is an optional second telephone number for the local authority.

This section displays:

1. • previous accesses to the CP-IS information (up to a maximum of the last 25 accesses)
   • the date and time of each previous access
   • the NHS organisation where CP-IS had previously been accessed from
   • the name and role of the NHS healthcare worker who has previously accessed CP-IS

Previous accesses could have taken place using any of the following systems:

1. An NHS system integrated with CP-IS
2. A CP-IS Spine Mini Service system
3. NCRS

When a NCRS user within an unscheduled care setting (B0107 – View CP-IS Flag) clicks the Child Protection tab to view CP-IS Information, information about the CP-IS access is captured and displayed to NHS users who subsequently access the same CP-IS Information. The CP-IS access information is also sent the Local Authority in the form of a CP-IS Access to Service Notification.

CP-IS access information includes

• event date/ time of the access
• name of the NHS healthcare worker logged in with their smartcard
• the job role selected during the logging in process
• the NHS organisation code, and name, from where the access was made

This information is also used to populate the ‘Child Protection Information Previously Viewed By’ section in National Care Records Service and other NHS systems.

One user accessing the same patient at the same organisation multiple times within a rolling 24-hour period will trigger only one access to service notification

2 users accessing the same patient at the same organisation multiple times within a rolling 24-hour period will trigger 2 access to service notifications.