More than half of health checks for children coming into Dorset care not completed on time

It will include the possibility of using specialist GPs or Registrar instead of paediatricians and making use, when needed, of information already held on children by social workers.

The county is often failing to meet the statutory 20-day deadline of completing a health check for a variety of reasons.

Dorset Council’s corporate parenting board heard on Monday that in addition to a shortage of paediatricians the system of making appointments needed improvement with youngsters sometimes having to take a day out of school to travel to centres in either Dorchester or Poole.

Occasionally there are also problems with consent from birth parents and the children themselves were sometimes reluctant to attend – feeling it unfair they had to undergo the checks while their peers did not. Many were also not happy about having to miss a day of school.

Council chair Pauline Batstone said she understood the reluctance of children to attend the health checks when others did not: “It doesn’t happen to other, apart from those it care. It would be good if, somehow, we could get a positive slant on it for them,” she said.

A foster carer told the panel that she had attended two of these health checks, both of which were also attended by a birth parent, yet in both cases the person carrying out the checks had failed to ask that parent about the child’s medical history. In one case the child did not want to participate and in the other the child was too young to answer questions.

Councillors were told that the lack of an initial health assessment means that carers are sometimes having to care for children without a full picture of their health needs – which may affect the way they are supported.

The corporate parenting board heard on Monday that delays are occasionally caused by social workers not providing health services with timely notification and/or consent and also by the initial appointment being declined, or not attended on the day. By law the initial health assessment had to be carried out within 20 working days for children accommodated by the local authority.

Only around half of the current assessment are held within the time frame, according to statistics, with the performance rate becoming worse over the past two years.

For the last quarter it meant that of 34 children who were new into care, only 18 had the initial health assessment completed on time; 10 were completed within 21-30 days; two were completed after 30 days and four were still outstanding after 30 days.

Director of children’s services Sarah Parker said there were often complex reasons for not hitting the deadline – but the issue was being tackled: “This is a real focus for us in our ‘looked after’ teams.

“It’s looking good and it’s looking positive and we are doing the best we can to improve but there is a way to go to make these assessments local and accessible,” she said.

A review has led to guidance being issued to social workers and their managers about the need for the checks to be completed on time.

Cllr Andrew Kerby called on the service to look at improvements when the health checks next go out to tender.

Said board chair Tony Coombs: “This is due to come back to us in October. I hope by then that we will have a step in the right direction. I’d like to see this move on.”

Councillors were told that the situation was much the same in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council area.