Before we start

CP-IS applies to the following scheduled and unscheduled healthcare settings only: 

Scheduled

• general practice
• community paediatrics
• Dentistry
• 0-19 Services (health visitors and school nurses)
• mental health services
• sexual health services (TOPS and SARCS)

Unscheduled

• emergency departments 
• minor injury units 
• walk-in centres 
• GP out-of-hours services 
• maternity units 
• paediatric wards
• ambulance services

CP-IS must not be used in additional, unspecified, care settings. 

The information that CP-IS provides comes from local authorities that have statutory responsibility for children’s services only. It does not include information from GP practices, schools, or health visitors. 

CP-IS is not a system itself. CP-IS is an initiative that is connecting more than 80 different IT systems used across health and children’s social care in England so that safeguarding information can be shared securely between organisations

When you are live with CP-IS, staff will see a Child Care Alert tab on a child’s record if they have a Child Protection Plan or are a Looked After Child. Staff may not therefore know the term ‘CP-IS’, but should be aware of the Child Care Alert tab. 

CP-IS is not just about implementing an IT change. Implementing CP-IS and managing the information it provides appropriately involves changing your business processes, information governance documents, training staff and more. Each organisation needs to identify someone to act as a project manager who will bring together the staff needed to carry out the work. The project can often be completed in as little as one week to three months, depending on the method you use to access CP-IS information, the resources and time you allocate to it. 

We have tried to provide guidance that will work for all organisations. However, no two implementation projects are the same. Each organisation has a unique set of IT systems, policies, processes and staff with different skills. So please be aware that your implementation journey may be different to your neighbour’s. 

When you go live, the following patients should be checked when they present for care to see if a Child Care Alert  is present on their records: 

All children under the age of 18 years (and not just those you have a safeguarding concern about).

All girls and women presenting at maternity units who are:

• up to 55 years of age, and  
• not known to maternity services because they have been admitted via an emergency department or directly from ambulance services, or
• are from out of area and not booked into local maternity services, or o have recently moved into the area and do not have maternity records

All girls and women presenting at emergency departments who

• are visibly pregnant, and 
• not being admitted for maternity assessment, and a community midwife has not been identified

You should not wait for other organisations or systems suppliers before going live and making a difference with CP-IS. Every health and social care organisation that is live with CP-IS is providing crucial protection for more than 130,000 of the most vulnerable children in society. Remember, vulnerable children are often moved around and may present at any unscheduled care setting outside of their local area. CP-IS is a national tool and helps to ensure that vulnerable children are protected in unscheduled healthcare settings across England.

CP-IS enables a limited amount of essential information to be shared between organisations.

There are a number of technical options available for implementing CP-IS.    In summary, the options are:

If an integrated solution is not available, we recommend that healthcare organisations implement CP-IS using the National Care Record Service (NCRS)

The National Care Record Service (NCRS) is a free web-based application. It enables healthcare organisations to securely view patient information held on the NHS Spine, including:

• demographics like the Patient Demographic Service (PDS)
• Summary Care Records (SCRs) 
• Child Care Alerts like Child Protection – Information Sharing (CP-IS)
• Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) alerts

NCRS is a secure system that is free of charge, and quick and easy to use. The vast majority of healthcare organisations that have implemented CP-IS so far have done it using NCRS. 

NCRS is accessed directly through a web address or the NHS Spine Portal. Each user needs an NHS Smartcard with the correct Role Based Access Control codes added in order to access the right information.

Further information about Summary Care Records is available. 

Your IT supplier may developed CP-IS functionality for your current system. This means you would be able to implement CP-IS by upgrading your current system and accessing it from within your local system  or application.

A list of IT systems that provide CP-IS functionality are available.