Thursday 31 January 2019

Safeguarding Children and Young People

Safeguarding Children and Young People: Roles and Competencies for Healthcare Staff is a new Intercollegiate document published by the Royal College of Nursing on 30th January 2019.  This is the 4th edition replacing the 2014 publication which was previously hosted on the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health website.  Today, if working in Primary Care as a nurse, we have to be trained in Safeguarding to Level 3.  I found the most meaningful way of understanding and appreciating the training was in an all day face to face session although I know many undertake this online.

Click on the image below  to access.



PLEASE NOTE: Page 28 also states that the minimum level that should apply to pharmacists is level 2.  Those pharmacists undertaking professional care activities and services in care homes, urgent and emergency care settings, travel clinics, GP practice and out of hours service require level 3 competency.  

This is a substantial piece of work.  Details about Level 3: All clinical staff starts on page 27.  Education, training and learning logs are included in Appendix 4 starting on page 91 followed by a reflective log then outcomes for activities.   These tools for use would be very helpful and also enable the practitioner to form a ‘passport’ for those who move on to new jobs or other organisations.

A useful Press Release from the RCN is available here.

The Faculty of Travel Medicine with support of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow were involved the development of this document.

Importantly within this document, a reference (78) is made to the RCN Female Genital Mutilation: RCN guidance for Travel services publication which is another key guide you should be aware of.


The CQC Safeguarding children training position statement of February 2018 described 5 levels of competency and for level 3 they said:

Level 3: All clinical staff working with children, young people and/or their parents/carers and who could potentially contribute to assessing, planning, intervening and evaluating the needs of a child or young person and parenting capacity where there are safeguarding/child protection concerns.

For their full documentation see here - stating for review in April 2019

So my conclusion is that all clinical staff seeing child travellers must be trained on Safeguarding to level 3 as a minimum.