Child protection and wellbeing

The Education Secretary, Bridgette Phillipson, has described it as a "seminal moment," as proposed new laws for child protection are set to pass through parliament. 

The government declares itself 'child-centric', ensuring genuine integration between children's social care, schools, and local services. 

Aline Fox from Yahoo! News writes, "The Department for Education said measures in the bill will ensure teachers and schools are always involved in decisions around safeguarding children in their area".

So, what is the proposed legislation set to pass through Westminster? 

1. Giving local authorities the power to intervene and require school attendance for any child if the home environment is deemed unsuitable or unsafe.

2. Parents will no longer have an automatic right to take their children out of school for home education if they are subject to a child protection investigation.

3. New registers will be used to identify children not in school and give them a new unique number, similar to a national insurance number, to ensure thorough tracking and monitoring across various public services. 

What do the safeguarding proposals really mean?

We in education and as parents and carers can look at these proposals with a slight sigh of relief.

Certainly, the practical application of these new regulations and their progress through Westminster remains to be seen, but the intended goal is a big step forward in the national stance on child safeguarding. 

At Medical Tracker, we're very pleased to see such urgency placed on the progress of these proposals. The commentary of Children's Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza adds further weight to the importance of data collection, integration, and sharing: "Writing these two landmark measures into law will be of huge significance for any child [...]. It must now be supported by proper data-sharing between organisations so no child can become invisible in the system.” 

How can schools improve their data collection and sharing? 

Medical Tracker now supports 2,750+ schools to record and track their daily health and safety. Aside from the reduced workload, reduced stress, and reduced paper use, Medical Tracker at its core - tracks. 

For schools, Multi-Academy Trusts and local authorities using Medical Tracker have upgraded their mental and physical well-being, safeguarding provisions for students and staff.

Click the eye icon next to each feature title to read more. 

Incident Recording

- Track incidents and accidents, including RIDDOR cases.

- Track pupil illness and injuries 

- Report on injury hot spots, injury types, and what this means for future safeguarding provisions. 

Information Sharing 

- Online MAR sheets for schools

- Daily medication registers 

- Create IHCPs online

- Medication consent form templates for instant parent approval requests. 

End-to-end communication with parents/carers

- Keep parents notified of every injury, medication administration, accident, etc.

- Alert school staff of injuries or incidents involving specific students. 

Data collection on Medical Tracker for safeguarding

Medical Tracker tracks a significant amount of data every day. For instance, in the 2023/24 academic year, an incident was recorded every second on Medical Tracker on average, every school day. On top of this, our platform has now tracked over 40,000,000 million incidents, accidents and inputs. 

This data collection, both nationally and regionally, is incredibly valuable for local services, safeguarding leads, parents, and other key stakeholders in a child's health and safety. 

For children in homeschooling or flexi-schooling environments, adding Medical Tracker to their school could significantly enhance the overall pastoral care they receive.