Actions speak louder: A second review of healthcare in ... - HMCPSI

ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER
FINDINGS
Good practice from inspection reports
“Children and young people who were referred to the youth offending
service were screened for their health needs as part of the Onset
assessment and referred to specialist workers where appropriate.”
“All children and young people at risk of offending who were referred to
both the youth inclusion programme (YIP) 16 and youth inclusion and
support panels (YISP) had full access to the mental health and physical
health screening and advice available through the youth offending
service. This included a full-time drugs advisor and mental health and
health workers provided by CAMHS and the primary care trust.”
“Holistic health assessments regularly resulted in access to teenage
pregnancy services, condom distribution by the YOT, smoking
cessation, parenting support, priority GP and dental access and
diabetes recognition. In addition, domestic violence, epilepsy,
nutritional needs, bereavement counselling, public health issues,
bullying, anger management and immunisation were also addressed.”
Too often, however, YOTs missed children or young people’s health issues because
they did not make good initial assessments. A quarter of initial assessments (using
Onset) in cases examined were not judged by inspectors to have been of sufficient
quality in relation to identified health issues. This explains why a similar percentage
was judged not to have full attention paid to the methods likely to be most effective
with the child or young person. A third of cases did not actively assess, at an early
stage, diversity issues, factors that could discriminate against or disadvantage
young people, or other individual needs. Even where YOTs were making accurate
assessments of the range of health needs, there often remained a shortfall in the
cases of children or young people who were then appropriately referred for
specialist assessment.
Clearly, without a thorough and accurate assessment of needs, proper consideration
of the capacity of health services to meet needs cannot be undertaken. Where health
resources were low, or even non-existent, for preventative services within a YOT,
it created a ‘no-win’ situation. Practitioners did not assess health needs, since a
service couldn’t be provided and health services indicated that no clear need was
apparent, due to the lack of referrals. Consequently, direct services were not
provided.
Good and productive work in prevention is key to deterring children and young
people from offending, and health services need to do as much as they can to assist
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The Youth Justice Board’s evaluation of youth inclusion programmes revealed that 25,000 young people had
benefited from the support these programmes offered over a three-year period – YJBulletin, 25 November 2008.
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