1. Staffordshire & Stoke on Trent Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub
John Maddox
MASH Development Officer

2. Information Sharing in action

3. Your Speaker today and the dark arts !!
My background and experience is based on a former life. I was a police officer for 30 years and for a good proportion of that I was an intelligence officer. Which means that my principle responsibility was handling information which was risk assessed and which carried risk with it.
e.g. CHIS & UC
Duty of care
Procedures to be followed
Public interest immunity
Where….europe kiv germany

4. WHY ?

5. Why do we need MASH in Staffordshire
The Evidence was clear and difficult..we lost children
BSK410 & NS10
Go over NS10 5x5x5 and grading 1

6. Concept Sharing more information. Undertaking Early Risk Assessment
A ‘whole family’ approach to safeguarding.
Enhanced data sharing and analysis to join up the information available about a family to support and/or intervene to protect the vulnerable.
Creating a confidential environment where proportionality necessity & justification allow information to be released to operational staff.

7. Who is in MASH
Staffordshire County Council Children & Adults
Staffordshire Police
Staffs & Stoke NHS Partnership Trust
Stoke on Trent City Council Children & Adults
SWMPT (MAPPA)
North Staffs Combined Mental Health (maybe)

8. The Challenges Culture Fear Knowledge Ignorance The law
Doing what we have always done
Not my responsibility
Culture : A view of the world from a silo, no appreciation of anothers role or responsibilities, even a lack of respect for other agencies
Fear : of getting things wrong..better to be risk averse, stories of misconduct cases
Knowledge: Of data protection claim it stops you doing anything, awareness of agreements, understanding what can and cannot be done.
Ignorance: Of change, of protocols, of changes to legislation
The Law : Duty of care balances, complexity of changing case law

9. Solutions Having a face to face process
Creating a Confidential Environment
An agreed MOU
Right level of decision maker
Professionally Disagree
Applied Multi agency thinking
Professional judgement
Trust & Confidence

10. MOU Builds on existing agreements
Two stage process – Reveal & Disclose
Audit Process
Have a legal basis
Handling Protocols & info ownership
Escalation process

11. Essential Elements
Governance

13. Cohorts/Populations:-
High Risk Children referrals (Safeguarding & above)
Vulnerable Adult (No secrets) referrals
Domestic Abuse-Victims & Perpetrators and repeat cases
Domestic Violence screening for Children & Vulnerable Adults
Missing persons
Child Sexual Exploitation
Hate Crime
Some Professional Concern cases (issues raised by professionals but not clear as to the cohort at referral stage)

14. SO WHAT !! More referral's equals more information sharing
More Information Sharing equals more opportunity for Safeguarding
More Safeguarding means opportunity for early intervention
Early intervention means less need acute services
More discussions mean better decisions about who should attend

15. Performance (February & March 2013) Total throughput = 6723
MASHED = 1919 (as of 21/05/13= 3851)
Equals = 29% info sharing
41% Domestic Abuse
36% Children
10% Adults
4% Child Sexual Exploitation
9% other cohorts

16. Exit severities following Mashing : 66% Unchanged 27% Raised
What impact re Risks
Exit severities following Mashing :
From Single agency assessment incoming to output by MASH
66% Unchanged
27% Raised
7% Lowered
Re referral rate = 5.2%

17. How to eat an elephant – one piece at a time ;
Things to watch out for
Prepare for change
How to eat an elephant – one piece at a time ;
Gradual introduction of cohorts of cases
Design of the physical change of information sharing
Prepare for change.
I’m a sure you will have all seen an episode of grand designs and apart from that German huff house, all projects despite best laid plans, are changed and redesig9ned. This is equally true for MASH. for the MASH.
It is is important to have the practicalities and infrastructure in place and to specify how the system will work as this will provide the much needed blue print however, be prepared for change.
How to eat an elephant – In small bites
There is a risk with setting up a MASH that the service will attempt too much from the outset. The MASH concept will often overpromise and the operational reality will under deliver. It is important to remember that as agencies come together to share processes they will also begin sharing the demand.
Staffordshire took the approach that we would gradually introduce cohorts of cases to the full lateral checking process. This meant that there was no risk to existing processes. The children’s team retained its distinct incoming lines and dealt with calls as they had always dealt with them. We wanted time within the environment to design how the physical exchange of information sharing would take place and once this had been designed and tested and was up and running we would gradually increase the demand.

18. We view full information sharing as a compliment to already established systems.
Prepare for change.
I’m a sure you will have all seen an episode of grand designs and apart from that German huff house, all projects despite best laid plans, are changed and redesig9ned. This is equally true for MASH. for the MASH.
It is is important to have the practicalities and infrastructure in place and to specify how the system will work as this will provide the much needed blue print however, be prepared for change.
How to eat an elephant – In small bites
There is a risk with setting up a MASH that the service will attempt too much from the outset. The MASH concept will often overpromise and the operational reality will under deliver. It is important to remember that as agencies come together to share processes they will also begin sharing the demand.
Staffordshire took the approach that we would gradually introduce cohorts of cases to the full lateral checking process. This meant that there was no risk to existing processes. The children’s team retained its distinct incoming lines and dealt with calls as they had always dealt with them. We wanted time within the environment to design how the physical exchange of information sharing would take place and once this had been designed and tested and was up and running we would gradually increase the demand.

19. Introducing a wave of multiagency demand through a single point of information sharing is likely to result in a monumental bottle neck.
We often think in linear terms and this is apparent from many of the process designs I have seen for MASH. In reality the information sharing activity is organic and happens across the partnerships often simultaneously. We took time to observe this activity, understand it and on the strength of this introduced complimentary processes to help organise and quantify it.

20. It’s worth it It’s Worth it
Moving beyond simple co location to an integrated multiagency system is hard work and I cannot state here and say we have full cracked it however, we are evolving and developing at pace. What I can say is that it does bring enormous benefits. The staff are behind the concept and are absolutely of the view that it has made a difference to their practice. There is a culture of confidence regarding information sharing and the intelligence we hold on the combined systems has greatly increased our opportunity to safeguard.
Ultimately it is important not to loose sight of what is being achieved. We will often focus on the problems and challenges we face and neglect to look at what is working well and what has been achieved. Has the MASH been worth it, absolutely it has.

21. Questions