QOF Plus Year 1 - Imperial College London

BackgroundThe United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) states that all children have aright to be protected from “physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect, maltreatment orexploitation including sexual abuse, while in the care of parent(s), legal guardian(s) or any otherperson who has the care of the child” (Article 19).The proposed indicators relating to child protection have been derived from SafeguardingChildren and Young People in General Practice: A Toolkit, which aims to equip practices with theknowledge and tools to integrate safeguarding children and young people into practice systemsand processes.Child protection is the term used to refer to the activity taken to protect children who aresuffering or at risk of suffering significant harm.A vulnerable adult is a person aged 18 years or over “who is or may be in need of community careservices by reason of mental or other disability, age or illness; and who is or may be unable totake care of him or herself, or unable to protect him or herself against significant harm orexploitation” (DoH, 2000).The publication ‘No Secrets’ (DoH, 2000) states that “in recent years several serious incidentshave demonstrated the need for immediate action to ensure that vulnerable adults, who are atrisk of abuse, receive protection and support.” The publication highlights the need for thecreation of“…a framework for action within which all responsible agencies work together to ensurea coherent policy for the protection of vulnerable adults at risk of abuse and a consistentand effective response to any circumstances giving ground for concern or formalcomplaints or expressions of anxiety. The agencies’ primary aim should be to preventabuse where possible but, if the preventive strategy fails, agencies should ensure thatrobust procedures are in place for dealing with incidents of abuse.”Within existing QOF practices are expected to carry out a minimum number of significant eventaudits (SEA) each year. The purpose of this is to support reflective practice and to ensurechanges are made were necessary to reduce the likelihood of problems recurring.PCTs and hospital trusts now routinely report patient safety incidents via the National Reportingand Learning System (NRLS). This system saves anonymised data from incident reports with theaim of recognising recurrent patterns and feedback learning nationally. The system relies on acritical mass of incident reports being received.86