Who is responsible (child protection scenario)

[TheLimeQuail]

Parent has 3 children removed from their care. Changes identity and moves away. Has another child under their new name that they then assault and hospitalise. Could this have been prevented

This, and especially if they're female the shouts of 'human rights' re preventing someone from having dc is always a huge thing. Even search compulsory sterilisation here, it would be evil and awful to stop a paedophile/violent assaults to a child having another child... against their rights..

There is an issue over the fact that there is no control over anyone being able to change their name, and then being able to get documents reissued in their new name.

I gather the politicians are 'aware' of it and we may see action at some stage that may bar some people from changing their name or requiring permission to do so but its a way off yet.

I met a foster carer recently who had baby twins with her. The mum had concealed the pregnancy due to having had children removed before. This is also common.
I'm not sure how you can actually stop people from saying their name is not what it really is? I know you need ID for some things but your landlord/bank/job centre won't necessarily even know you have a child.

I’m surprised it didn’t trigger an immediate social services investigation when they registered for maternity care at their gp … unless they didn’t seek antenatal care and simply went to a&e in labour giving a false address.

No there isn't. There's system one which is nhs. Local authorities still have to request information from one another about historical concerns. It's a massive issue.

I think the scenario in the op is enough for a serious case review. These are public records though they are anonymised. I'm not sure it could be prevented entirely though.

SW here.
It’s parents who abuse harm and even kill their children.
Not Social Workers.

What I’m trying to say is I don’t understand how this was allowed to happen. I don’t understand how this couldn’t have been a systematic failure

@TheLimeQuail is it the same mother of all the children? I can talk you through how this could have happened

Yes

I really can't see where your point is coming from.

What powers do you wish the state has to stop this, and which agency are you going to give those powers to?

People seem to post these threads without thinking enough about the implications of what they are demanding.

They don’t run checks on parents though do they, much less if a male? He may not have even had contact with health care professionals.

Absolutely tragic and you’d hope a service would have picked up on it but I can see how it may have happened.

So there is no one who can be held responsible for allowing this to happen?

I don’t recall having to prove my identity to access maternity services?

Depends what your understanding of “the system” is and whether it bears any relation to reality, really.

The mother isn’t required to access any maternity care and could have given birth without anyone knowing and the same outcome happening. Who would you blame then?

The person who did it is responsible! We don’t track people in the UK, there are not joined up databases that know where everyone is. The person went out of their way to change their name, area & waited a long time to do it.

She went to prison for abuse against her first 3 kids. Wouldn’t you think there should be something to prevent her from keeping another child.

Why didn’t you disclose it OP if you know so much? Safeguarding of children is everyone’s concern. Not just the authorities.

If you are on your GP database they would link it up with your previous records. I mean, you could go along to a busy GP practice and see someone who hadn't met you and give birth under another name but it would have to be an existing patient.
I suspect that in these days of immigrants getting medical bills you'd need to show your ID to register with a GP but you are already registered.

Disturbing to think abusing three children to the point of them being removed wouldn't be a criminal act

The person must be very good at evading the authorities by moving to a new area, new name , giving false information. Professionals only go by what they are told or can make sense of unless the person was tagged there is no way to fully keep track of someone. Shame someone who knew her and where she'd gone didn't contact the authorities.

Agree with the majority of the pp. it is the fault of the person who did this, she changed her name and moved away, how would anyone know her past unless you knew her. This is not the blame of children’s services at all. How would they ever know unless someone reported her?

I don’t think she kept in contact with anyone who knew her before or her family. I’m surprised no one questioned why there were no records for her anywhere under her new name from before the birth

Maybe different systems would have helped keep track , there isn't a country wide data base or tracking system. We dont have a national ID system. People go missing in the UK all the time. I don't think you have enough information to know the answer to your question or what might make a difference. There will be a serious case review which will establish more facts. Mostly functioning society relies on people in even a small part being open and honest or at least not bright enough to fully cover their tracks.

They probably registered as a new patient with the new name without disclosing their previous name.
I used to work on a children's ward and I discovered a kid had 2 nhs numbers because the mother had presented at A&E using a different name for the child (kid was transgender). They just registered the kid as a brand new nhs patient without questioning it.
They don't seem to track things very well. There's 17 years between my kids and they had no record of my pregnancy with DC1 because they now had implemented electronic records since I was pregnant with DC1 so they assumed DC2 was my 1st pregnancy until I told them otherwise. Same hospital 🤦‍♀️
You can easily slip through the net.

My little girl has two NHS numbers. One of them contains her records and history the other is completely clear for now. She is seeing specialists at the hospital and they told me they don’t have any history or record for her to look at her previous weight and height. I obviously explained the above and provided a background but they never questioned it and simply stated they have no history so would need to monitor her weight starting now. If I had not volunteered the info then that would have been that.

I am also aware that system one does not always link up between services. Health visitors can’t always access GP records for example. Often hospitals have different records to the GP. It’s got something to do with different parts/versions of system one. It is not one big open data base that can be accessed by all staff in every nhs service across the country.

Children’s services do not have a system that links to nhs records or probation records either. Many local authorities use entirely different systems. So one area next to another could likely have totally different recording systems and they definitely can’t access each other’s. Any information sharing from one area to the next and from health services to children’s services etc has to be requested by individual staff through email.

There was talk at one point in the recent past of allowing social workers to have access to people’s medical records but it never happened. Many people thought it was a huge invasion of privacy and human rights etc very big brother. I don’t see how it would have worked anyway given other NHS organisations can’t even see each other’s records.