Responding today to the OFSTED/Care Quality Commission report:
The Trust will carefully consider this report. We are working very closely with all partner agencies to demonstrably improve services in Haringey. Our staff are dedicated and our priority is trying to get more staff into Haringey to help us deliver the services the children and families deserve
We’re pleased to confirm that we have this week offered employment to eight new Health Visitors and while we cannot say they will all accept, we hope that this will be a significant reinforcement of the service. Health visitor recruitment has been a matter of concern with the difficult media climate adding to known issues in London boroughs and a shortage of trained staff.
The statement issued by all safeguarding agencies in Haringey follows:
“We are working very hard to address the issues identified by the inspectors.
I welcome the fact that Ofsted has said that our three year action plan is the right way forward.
Ofsted has confirmed that we have made progress in some areas in the months since our joint plan was approved, but we know that much more needs to be done and more time is needed. We accept the findings of this report and are prioritising improvements to frontline practice and supervision.
As everyone knows, there were fundamental problems with our safeguarding service and other issues – such as a backlog of cases – have come to light and decisive action has been taken in recent months.
We have a major staff recruitment drive underway and we remain committed to doing all we can to keep children in Haringey safe.
Regular monitoring by the inspectorates will give us the opportunity to identify where more needs to be done.”
Cllr Claire Kober, Leader of the Council on behalf of the local safeguarding services in Haringey
Improvements and changes include:
- The council is adding frontline capacity by recruiting more social workers. We have 10 additional social workers since this inspection and 15 more have accepted job offers and will join as soon as possible.
- We have moved more experienced social workers into the referral & assessment team to help deal with the caseload in the short term.
- A new post of Assistant Director of Safeguarding has been appointed to focus exclusively on this area of work
- Arrangement to set up a Children’s’ Trust are well in hand.
- Our logging and monitoring of case files has improved.
- Funding has increased for medical staff based in the community.
Recent recruitment activity is likely to lead to the appointment of several more health visitors.
Contact information:
GOSH-ICH Press Office: 020 7239 3125
Email:
Coxs@gosh.nhs.ukFor genuine and urgent out of hours call speak to switchboard on 020 7405 9200
