Safeguarding children

The Children’s Safeguarding team works to protect vulnerable children and young people by safeguarding and promoting their health and wellbeing.

We provide a credible, accessible and approachable service which empowers staff in safeguarding children and promoting their well-being. We believe safeguarding children is the responsibility of the whole community and depends on the every day vigilance of everyone who plays a part in the lives of children in vulnerable situations to ensure that children are kept as safe from harm as possible.

Working with professionals across Bromley Healthcare, the service provides supervision, expertise and training for anyone working with children at risk. We take abuse seriously and it’s important to us that our staff are able to identify families where this may be a risk and offer support where necessary. We also work closely with hospitals, social services, the police and other local agencies concerned with children and families to share information that protects children.

Bromley Healthcare safeguarding declaration

“Safeguarding children is one of our highest priorities and there is strong commitment to ensuring that structures and governance arrangements for safeguarding children are robust within the organisation.

We meet statutory requirements in relation to safer recruitment practice. There is a robust Disclosure and Barring service for all staff prior to employment and for those working with children an enhanced level of assessment is conducted. Our job descriptions include a statement on safeguarding children.

All our safeguarding children policies and systems are up to date, robust and reviewed on a regular basis. Policies and procedures are available to all staff on our staff intranet. There is a programme of safeguarding children audit in place which provides assurance that policy and procedures are embedded into practice and investigates risk issues.

All eligible staff undertake relevant safeguarding children training. We have a robust training strategy in place with regard to delivering safeguarding training within a single agency and contributing to multi-agency training in conjunction with Bromley Children’s Safeguarding Board. Bromley Healthcare Staff are maintaining levels of training above target.

All new staff attend a training session of safeguarding children as part of their induction. Staff receive an annual update briefing and a safeguarding children message appears in the staff newsletter a minimum of every two months.

We employ specialist professionals who lead on issues in relation to safeguarding children. They are clear about their role, have sufficient time and receive relevant support and training to undertake their roles; this includes joint working with other health and social care organisations.

There is a clear line of accountability for safeguarding children within Bromley Healthcare and we are committed to partnership working. The Board level Executive Lead for Safeguarding is the Director for Nursing, Therapies and Quality Assurance; who is also a member of the Bromley Safeguarding Children Board (BSCB) Board. The named nurse and named doctor attend the BSCB training committee as well as the Quality Assurance and Performance Management Committee. The Designated Doctor for Child Death attends the Child Death Overview Panel.

A bi-monthly safeguarding children meeting for all heads of our children’s services is chaired by the Director for Nursing, Therapies and Quality Assurance. A designated professional for safeguarding children is also invited to this meeting.

Action plans from Serious Case Reviews or Serious Incidents are monitored by the Bromley Safeguarding Children Health Forum, which reports to the Bromley Safeguarding Children Board and the Clinical Commissioning Group.”

This service is not open to members of the public. It aims to support other professionals working with children and families.

bromh.safeguardingchildren@nhs.net

If you are a member of the public and you are concerned about a child you can find advice and information on the Bromley Safeguarding website.