6590 Do you know the policy? Child not brought!

Objectives Non-attendance at health appointments is a missed opportunity to contact potentially vulnerable patients. Such incidents not only put the child's life at risk, if there are safeguarding concerns but also potentially expose clinicians to professional risk if contact is not made. Additionally, the cost of missed appointments contributes to the cash strapped NHS's financial burden. This quality improvement project sought to explore the multi-disciplinary team's awareness and use of the Trust's current 'Child Not Brought' policy. Methods A survey questionnaire was prepared with input from the Trust's safeguarding team and senior management. This exercise was undertaken to understand how informed our multi-disciplinary team is about the organisation's 'Child Not Brought' policy. The results were analysed with the help of our organisation's Training department by a descriptive statistical analysis of policy use and with a thematic analysis of free text comments. Results Eighty five professionals from our multi-disciplinary team (MDT) including Paediatric consultants, Paediatric Trainees, Speech Therapists, Physiotherapists, Occupational Therapists, Community Nurses, Dieticians and other professionals responded to the survey request. Almost one fifth of respondents were unaware that the Trust had a 'Child Not Brought' policy. Approximately half of the respondents have never used this policy. Just under two thirds of the respondents have never undertaken the risk assessment following a non-attendance. Six respondents had referred patients to Children's Social Care due to underlying safeguarding concerns following risk assessment. Only one trainee out of five trainees who responded to this survey was aware of the policy and no trainees had ever used the policy. Conclusion Our survey highlights serious deficiencies in the awareness of our staff regarding the 'Child Not Brought' policy. On the flip side, our organisation's intranet page has 242 policies. How realistic is it to expect our colleagues to be aware of all of them? Authors feel there is a pressing need to highlight the importance of the 'Child Not Brought' policy and to train the staff to risk assess each case of non-attendance to an appointment so that we are able to protect the most vulnerable children in our society.