Family and Friends Forum

Personally I wouldn't worry too much about it, I'm sure in the medical profession they see many different circumstances in families and definitely will have seen this before.

If there is a marker next to your child's records it'll be safeguarding and not intended as a label.

Hey,

I used to worry all the time too, due to being prem and other health issues my newborn frequently visits the dr or hospital, and I've been asked so many times if my child is known to social services which I have to say yes.

I don't know exactly how much they can see but from what I've experienced myself, it's literally the most basic overview on the subject. My nurse showed me what was on my child's report and it was literally 1 brief sentence saying what my OH was accused of but no further details of the crime or investigation.

At first it did feel awful, embarrassing and shameful even if I wasn't the one who's the reason for it. But after a while it just started to feel like a standard question without any further probing, I've only had 1 nurse ask the reason why but other than that time, they continue as normal without judgement.

It's for safeguarding, and while it can feel like a pain I guess it's standard procedure, I'm not sure if it will be a permenant thing as my OH is still under investigation so I can't answer that unfortunately, but if the dr is proffessional then they won't really bring it up at all x

Hi,

I believe it's just a marker on the medical records for professionals to see if any information needs to be sent over to ss.

I've had a health visitor ask since case closed and I said not currently involved but have been previously. Given the same response to nursery. Neither of them asked any further questions.
I think somebody said that it's a way for them to communicate with each other as professionals so that no child gets lost in the system brought in with all the cases previously where children have presented with injuries or have said things to professionals that were concerning but communication was lacking so the medical team didn't know they were under ss and ss didn't know they had injuries etc. I hope this helps to put your mind at ease xxx

Slightly different situation but it's definitely worth keeping an eye on what appears on health records and letters. My OH has recently had some time at hospital and we just happened to notice in discharge notes that there was a section on 'social situation' which stated he'd recently been released from prison. It didn't say what for, and it was also incorrect and years out of date. But it must have been copied and pasted from some record from years ago. Just worth keeping an eye on all paperwork! It really shocked us both and I was angry on his behalf that it would a) be included at all and b) remain on file and be out of date. Who knows who else may have seen that

Everyone on the SOR is considered MAPPA eligible, which means there will be a marker on their medical record somewhere. The marker won't be obvious to a casual viewer and it won't contain any details of their offence, but the staff will know what it means.

The full details of why they are MAPPA will only be accessible to one named individual, usually the safeguarding lead for that particular NHS trust. These details are treated as highly confidential, and are stored securely, so only the safeguarding lead can access them.

But in reality, staff can still make an educated guess about why the MAPPA marker is there. They will assume that the person must be a sex offender, because in probably 80% of cases, the MAPPA markers are used for sex offenders, even though they can be used for other types of offenders, such as violent offenders, too.

Sadly, people will often assume the worst, when they see a MAPPA marker on someones record, but they will not know for certain what that person has done.