Health Service Commissioner : first report for session 1978-79 : investigations completed August to November 1978.

  • Great Britain. Health Service Commissioner
Date:
1978
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Health Service Commissioner : first report for session 1978-79 : investigations completed August to November 1978. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    taking three times the dose and at the same time follows a Greek Orthodox pattern of starving herself to help [her son]. This means she eats nothing until the evening. She does this routinely on Tuesdays and Fridays but for Easter she did it for 40 days’. The complaint as put to me by the Member also alleged that the minutes of the case conference included the statement: (d) ‘She [the complainant’s wife] rarely takes [her son] out’. The Authority dealt with this aspect of the complaint in its own investigation and, as the health visitor told my officer in the course of my enquiries (paragraph 36) that she had made this statement at the local authority’s case conference, I have included it in my own investigation for the sake of completeness. Investigation 4. I have examined guidance on the management of cases involving non- accidental injury to children, which was issued in April 1974 by the Department of Health and Social Security in a joint circular to area health authorities and local authorities (LASSL(74)13/CMO(74)8). By way of providing background to this case, I quote paragraph 14 from this circular which states: ‘A case conference is recommended for every case involving suspected non-accidental injury to a child. In this way unilateral action will be minimised and all those who can provide information about the child and his family, have statutory responsibility for the safety of the child, or are responsible for providing services, will be brought together to reach a collective decision which takes into account the age of the child, nature of injuries and a medico-social assessment of the family and its circumstances.’ The circular does not contain any guidance on whether parents should be informed that their child is the subject of an investigation. Neither does it mention the invitation of parents to case conferences or the question of informing parents of entries in relevant registers. 5. Also in April 1974, following the setting up of a working party in 1973 to clarify lines of communication and action when dealing with ‘battered babies’ and potentially ‘battered babies’, the local authority issued a booklet to their social workers, teaching staff and libraries, and to the police, local magistrates and the Department of Health and Social Security. This booklet, a copy of which I have seen, gave responsibility to the local authority’s Social Services Department to ensure that a case conference was called urgently when a child was found to be at risk, except in cases of hospital referral when the responsibility rested with the hospital social worker. 6. The complainant and his wife adopted their son in September 1974. He had been born on 20 April 1974 and placed with them a few days later by a third party. Later that year he was diagnosed as a quadraplegic spastic and was placed under the care of the consultant paediatrician at . . . hospital A (the consultant). At the time of the adoption the complainants were unaware of his condition. From January 1975 until May 1976 he attended the child development centre at hospital B. In April 1975 the local authority and staff of the Authority at hospital A started a playgroup for
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