Health Practitioners – useful links & resources

This  resource is for all healthcare professionals to help them use their knowledge, skills and relationships, working with patients and the population to prevent illness, protect health and promote well-being.

Front-line healthcare practitioners can achieve this by:

• carrying out proactive work to prevent illness or protect health, and measuring your impact when you do this
• working with people, families and communities to equip them to make informed choices and manage their own health
• making every contact count.

Health professionals in strategic or management roles can:

• look at or respond to local population needs and the wider factors affecting health and people’s ability to make healthy life choices
• contribute to ‘healthy places’ (integrated services for local populations) including sustainability and transformation plans
• take life course approaches to prevention and care (for every aspect of a person’s life, from beginning to end), supporting resilience and independence.

The All Our Health resource is constantly evolving by taking on feedback from healthcare practitioners, leaders and educators and provides:

• resources include topic-specific information, for instance looking at how to help focus on important lifestyle risk factors like physical inactivity, smoking or alcohol;
• views on how every professional can play a role in combating problems like antibiotic resistance or pressure ulcers
• tips on having brief conversations, health coaching and motivational interviewing
• sources of trusted information to share.

The All Our Health resource can be found on the gov.uk website at  www.gov.uk/all-our-health-personalised-care-and-population-health

Imagine the impact if tens of thousands more front-line health professionals built this ‘prevention’ activity into their practice. This work will reduce the human cost of ill health (which often hits the poorest in our society hardest) and reduce pressure on our health and social services at the same time.

Child Protection Evidence is a new RCPCH evidence-based resource available to clinicians across the UK and internationally to inform clinical practice, child protection procedures and professional and expert opinion in the legal system.  Find out more on their website at www.rcpch.ac.uk/key-topics/child-protection/evidence-reviews

NSPCC flyers for health professionals working with children
A series of NSPCC resources for health professionals working with children, detailing the aspects of physical child abuse has also been developed based on collaborative work by the NSPCC and Cardiff Child Protection Systematic Reviews. Links to these can be found on the website at www.rcpch.ac.uk/guidance-resources-child-protection-evidence

This series of resources details aspects of physical child abuse and are based on collaborative work by the NSPCC and Cardiff Child Protection Systematic Reviews at Cardiff University. The information contained within the resources will be of use to a wide range of professionals in different disciplines who work with young peoples and their families and covers issues such as:

• Bruises on children
• Emotional neglect and emotional abuse in pre-school children
• Fractures in children
• Head and spinal injuries in children
• Neglect and emotional abuse in children aged 5-14
• Neglect and emotional abuse in teenagers aged 13-18
• Oral injuries and bites on children
• Thermal injuries on children.

The Public Health England Safeguarding in general dental practice guide can be downloaded from the government website at  www.gov.uk/safeguarding-in-general-dental-practice

Other resources aimed specifically at dentists and dental surgeries include:

• www.bda.org/childprotection
• www.cqc.org.uk/guidance-providers/dentists
• www.cqc.org.uk/dental-safeguarding-training
• www.gdc-uk.org

Greater Manchester LPC are the statutory committee representing people who provide community pharmacy services in Manchester and neighbouring authorities. Visit their website for more information at psnc.org.uk/greater-manchester-lpc/resources/safeguarding/

See also:

• www.cppe.ac.uk for online learning
• www.pharmacyregulation.org/safeguarding-children-and-vulnerable-adults

See our resource for GPs

Toolkit for school nurses
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has published guidance for school nurses in the UK – visit their website at www.rcn.org.uk

This toolkit provides school nurses with information, examples of good practice, templates and useful websites to support and develop professional practice. It considers varying policy and practice which applies across the UK and the range of settings in which school nurses work.

For many people, accessing the healthcare system can be a frightening experience – they are confronted by new environments, meet unfamiliar people and don’t know what to expect.

These fears may be compounded when the person coming into hospital already has other needs, such as a mental health condition, dementia, or a learning disability. Such conditions can affect the person’s perceptions or understanding of hospital experiences.

NHS Health Education England (HEE) have produced the ‘Making a Difference toolkit’ that brings together a range of resources to promote understanding about what it’s like to live with a learning disability, allowing healthcare professionals to adjust the care they deliver and helping people with a learning disability accesses the services they need.

The resources are arranged into themes and contain over 40 components. The aim is to support access to health care wherever it is delivered, albeit in the community, at the GP surgery, or in generic hospital services.

To access the full toolkit visit the website  www.hee.nhs.uk/learning-disabilities-made-clear-toolkit  or  aldhc.keele.ac.uk/wttk/

The Department of Health and Social Care published guidance on responding to individuals at risk of developing pressure ulcers, and preventing harm where they occur on 19 January 2018 – Safeguarding adults protocol: pressure ulcers and the interface with a safeguarding enquiry

This guidance from the Chief Social Worker helps practitioners and managers across health and care organisations to provide caring and quick responses to people at risk of developing pressure ulcers.

It also offers a process for the clinical management of harm removal and reduction where ulcers occur, considering if an adult safeguarding response is necessary.

Pressure ulcers, which are largely preventable, cause distress to individuals and their families and create financial pressures for the NHS. While the treatment of pressure ulcers is mainly clinical, prevention is a shared responsibility.

Find the guidance at www.gov.uk/pressure-ulcers-safeguarding-adults-protocol

The CQC expect all healthcare providers to follow the guidance in the Intercollegiate Document for Healthcare Staff; Safeguarding Children and Young people: roles and competences for health care staff (March 2014). This sets out the minimum training requirements required:

• Level 1: for all non-clinical staff (e.g. receptionists and practice managers)
• Level 2: for all dentists and dental care professionals
• Level 3: for paediatric dentists and paediatric orthodontists (i.e. those who could potentially contribute to assessing, planning, intervening and evaluating the needs of a child or young person and parenting capacity where there are safeguarding / child protection concerns). Level 3 training is not normally required for dentists and dental care professionals working in general dental practice.

This guidance states that safeguarding training should be refreshed every three years. Level 1 and Level 2 training refresher can be undertaken via online training courses. Level 1 training should last a minimum of two hours, level 2 a minimum of three hours.

Links to some useful easy read health resources:

• www.easyhealth.org.uk/
• www.peoplefirstinfo.org.uk/health-and-well-being/easy-read-information-for-people-with-learning-disabilities.aspx
• www.easyonthei.nhs.uk/_literature_113517/The_Clear_Communication_People-_Guide_to_producing_easy_read_information
• www.apictureofhealth.southwest.nhs.uk/
• patient.info/health/accessible-leaflets
• www.yourhealthmatters-leeds.nhs.uk/
• www.lsab.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/MCA-Easy-Read-Guide.pdf
• community.macmillan.org.uk/blogs/b/new_information_available/archive/2017/02/20/easy-read-cancer-information-for-people-with-learning-disabilities

SCIE
Training and consultancy services and free resources to help safeguarding boards, care providers, housing providers, local authorities, the NHS or police to safeguard adults at risk of abuse or neglect

Training and access to experts to support case reviews and audits for local children safeguarding boards or equivalent, local authorities, care and health providers, police and case reviewers to safeguard children and young people

NSPCC
An invaluable source of safeguarding information for all www.nspcc.org.uk/safeguarding