Summary
1. The examining doctor must provide verbal feedback immediately to Children’s Social Care/the Police 2. A written medical report should be provided within 2 working days 3. Any disagreements/uncertainty should be discussed at a Strategy Discussion/Meeting to decide next steps. |
It is essential that the findings of any medical investigations are made available at the earliest opportunity to those conducting the Section 47 enquiry. Where there has been a medical examination, the examining doctor must provide verbal feedback immediately to Children’s Social Care and the police, followed up by a written medical report to those agencies within 2 working days of the examination. Children’s Social Care must monitor that this report is received and record the date of receipt.
Children’s Social Care and the police must not delay their enquiries by waiting for the written report, but must take whatever action they deem necessary based on the verbal feedback.
Should professionals not be able to agree the nature and/or cause of incidents of suspected severe neglect or physical harm (including such harm caused by alleged sexual abuse), then a strategy discussion/meeting that includes the designated professionals should be re-convened by Children’s Social Care to discuss and plan how the enquiry should be taken forward. In the case of medical differences of opinion where a child is examined in hospital, this discussion must take place before the child leaves the hospital.
The purpose of the reconvened strategy discussion/meeting is to consider all information, assessments, and opinions and to jointly agree next steps. If there is no agreement, the senior managers/designated professionals of each agency should be consulted for further direction.
The discussion should be clearly recorded on a Strategy Discussion Record.
