It's essential that clinicians identify at-risk patients by accessing the patient records when reading our reports. In addition, eConsult flags up possible safeguarding issues in the following areas.
Safeguarding in paediatric consultations
In all paediatric consultations, eConsult only allows parents and legal guardians to consult on behalf of a child. We ask all consulters for their name, age (over 18 years only), mobile number, and email.
We ask whether the child has any issues with:
child protection and safeguarding
child mental health (CAMHS)
learning disabilities
needing help for day-to-day living.
We ask whether anyone else in the family (for example a sibling) has any of the issues listed above.
We confirm the educational arrangements for the child (including the name of school, nursery, etc. if relevant).
For children over 16 years of age, we ask about smoking, consumption of alcohol and non-prescription drugs.
In the paediatric 'Mental health' (or 'Behaviour concerns') pathway, we also ask about truancy, learning support plans, involvement with gangs or the police.
Safeguarding in adult consultations
For vulnerable adults, if a third party (or ‘proxy’) is submitting the online consultation, we ask their name, relationship to the patient, mobile number and email. We clearly flag this on the eConsult report.
Dr Richard Wrigley 28.02.22
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