Intercollegiate Safeguarding Children and Young People:
Roles and competencies for healthcare staff
All health staff must have the competences to recognise child maltreatment and to take effective action as appropriate to their role. They must also clearly understand their responsibilities, and should be supported by their employing organisation to fulfil their duties.
In 2006 the Royal Colleges and professional bodies jointly published Safeguarding children and young people: roles and competences for health care staff. The document described six levels of competences and provided model role descriptions for named and designated professionals.
Reviews across the UK reinforced the need to further improve the safeguarding skills and understanding of health staff. In response to these issues and to recent policy developments, the Royal Colleges and professional bodies have reviewed and updated the 2006 document.
During the review process an enormous number of suggestions from across a wide range of professional groups were received. The framework was refined and the document restructured in light of comments received.
It is beyond the remit of the framework to suggest more detail on how training will be delivered. However we have stressed throughout that it should whenever possible be appropriate to role. We hope that innovative training modules which are time efficient and engage clinicians in multidisciplinary working can be devised to accompany this infrastructure.
The emphasis within this version is upon the importance of maximising flexible learning opportunities to acquire and maintain knowledge and skills, drawing upon lessons from research, case studies and serious case reviews.
It is likely that the framework will need to be reviewed again in 2013 in light of the proposed structural changes across the NHS and other services in England.