Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to his Department's Child Protection Information Sharing project, what guidance will be given to NHS staff on sharing information with relevant local authorities, police forces and care homes.

The Child Protection – Information Sharing (CP-IS) project will allow the sharing of child protection information between NHS unscheduled care settings and local authority children’s services staff only. The information will not be shared with care homes or the police.

CP-IS will hold child protection information only for children in England who are subject to a child protection plan or are looked after by a local authority.

When NHS staff interrogate the CP-IS service, the system will share electronically the following information with the local authority responsible for the child: the time and date of the query, the name of the NHS healthcare worker who made the query, and the NHS organisation from within which the query was generated.

CP-IS will not introduce information sharing over and beyond what is currently shared by NHS staff and local authorities.

The Health & Social Care Information Centre has published guidance on its website for NHS and local authority staff on how to use the CP-IS system.