News item

Hartlepool Borough Council first to use live data in ContactPoint within a Social Care Case Management System

Leeds, 2nd February 2010: Liquidlogic, a leading provider of collaborative software to the public sector, announced today that Hartlepool Borough Council has been recognised by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) as the first Local Authority to access live data within ContactPoint in a social care case management system.

ContactPoint is being created as a tool to improve the wellbeing of all children and young people, to help keep them safe and help ensure that no child slips through the net. ContactPoint is a basic directory which enables practitioners to find out who else is working with the same child. It will help practitioners, across the children’s workforce, to work together when they need to, and provide a more co-ordinated approach to meet a child’s needs.

The Council accesses ContactPoint via Liquidlogic’s PROTOCOL Integrated Children’s System (ICS) and is able to view information which is relevant to a case within ICS. Hartlepool is also authorised to upload basic data to the system, such as name and contact details of practitioners working with a child.

Good quality data, supplied securely, is vital. Any system which supplies data to ContactPoint must be accredited to ensure it meets a set of required ContactPoint conditions. Only limited information is supplied to ContactPoint [1] and the information held is not sent to, or shared with, any other systems.

Hartlepool is rolling out access to ContactPoint gradually which has enabled the Borough to manage training programmes and ensure confident use of the system.

To ensure children’s records are accurate, complete, up-to-date and relevant, data needs to be provided to ContactPoint from relevant national and local source systems. The Regulations specify which data sources are required, and which are permitted to supply information to ContactPoint.

Four national data sources have already created a basic record for children in England: the General Register Office, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Children, Schools and Families schools census, and the NHS, which has provided GP practice information. Other, local systems have started to provide data to ContactPoint, and this process will continue over the coming months and years. Additional, local and national data sources are critical to ensuring that the full benefits of ContactPoint can be realised.

Ian Merritt, Head of Commissioning and Children’s Trust at Hartlepool Borough Council comments: “we are very pleased to be one of the first to have use of ContactPoint live within PROTOCOL ICS. We have worked very hard to get to this stage and are looking forward to the benefits which ContactPoint will bring to our community in Hartlepool.”

Denise Harrison, Sales & Marketing Director at Liquidlogic said:”this is a significant accomplishment which has required a great deal of focus from Hartlepool. The meticulous approach which they have taken is aligned with what ContactPoint has set out to do, provide a more co-ordinated approach to a child’s needs. This is something at the very heart of Liquidlogic’s values.”

[1] for example, the schools census only provides to ContactPoint the name and contact details for the child and their parents, and the contact detail for the school.

About ContactPoint accreditation

Type accreditation is a process put in place to enable software suppliers to demonstrate that their products meet ContactPoint standards. These products need to pass further tests locally to achieve instance accreditation, before being installed for live use by each customer.

More information about ContactPoint, is available here

02/02/10