Recommendation SP50: Healthcare trust risk information visibility
From The Southport Inquiry Report: Phase 1, published 13 April 2026.
Recommendation
The Department of Health and Social Care / NHS England should ensure that all healthcare trusts involved in the care of children and young people who are at risk of acts of violence against others have systems that ensure that:
1. Key information regarding current and historic risk information is readily visible to treating clinicians in a summarised form, where appropriate with suitable warning flags.
2. Where information comes in from other agencies that is relevant to the risk of violence to others, there are robust systems to ensure that the material is uploaded to or available on their own electronic patient records. Single points of failure leading to risk-relevant communications failing to be scanned need to be designed out.
In brief (written by this site)
In July 2026, HM Government accepted the recommendation, reporting that the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England were the lead organisations and that the Single Patient Record, which forms part of the 10 Year Health Plan for England, was "currently being designed and scoped" (Home Office response, Jul 2026). The record holds no update since the government's response of July 2026 (Home Office response, Jul 2026).
Sources
AI-generated summary of the record on this page, checked by a second model and automatic checks, 26 Sep 2026. The record below is the sources' own words.
Government response
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England are the lead organisations. Progress and next steps:
- The Single Patient Record is currently being designed and scoped.
- This is part of DHSC's 10 Year Health Plan for England, which was published on 3 July 2025.
Blanket government agreement does not establish acceptance or delivery by each addressee. Some response passages cover groups of recommendations.
Scope of the government response
The government's response to Phase 1 (CP 1623, 2 July 2026) agreed with all 67 recommendations in one sentence, and names only 39 of them individually. Where a recommendation is not named, the response shown is the passage the response gives for the group it belongs to (the recommendations for organisations outside central government, or the recommendations to policing bodies), which is not a response to that recommendation alone; the response does not list the members of any group. The 10 recommendations for Phase 2 of the Inquiry to consider show no response: the response introduces them (paragraph 20) but answers none of them. The government accepts the recommendations that are for central government to deliver. Where a recommendation is for an organisation outside central government, the government's agreement is not that organisation's acceptance.
Delivery
No statement on delivery from Department of Health and Social Care has been found in the sources searched (last checked 2 July 2026). This is separate from the response above.
Responsible bodies
Themes and tags
Who has spoken
- Department of Health and Social Care
Response