Incorporating Healthcare Encounters Involving Young Children into Sensemaking Alerts for Frontline Engagement and Response's Information-Gathering Mechanism

Dr Choo Pei Ling asked the Minister for Social and Family Development in light of the circumstances surrounding the September 2024 fatal child abuse case (a) whether the Ministry will consider incorporating information from healthcare encounters involving young children into the Sensemaking Alerts for Frontline Engagement and Response unit's (SAFER) cross-agency assessment of child-protection risks; and (b) what safeguards will ensure that repeated presentations or suspected non-accidental injuries are appropriately assessed and followed up.

Answer:

            While no system can detect every case of child abuse, MSF will continually seek to improve SAFER so that we can strengthen our detection capabilities. To this end, MSF is looking into incorporating relevant information into SAFER to provide a fuller picture of families who may be at risk. However, we recognise that patient and medical information is highly sensitive. Any inclusion of such information would need to be proportionate and subject to appropriate data governance safeguards.

2.          Frontline professionals, including healthcare professionals, use standardised child abuse reporting tools to assess warning signs of possible child abuse, including the nature and pattern of injuries such as repeated presentations. The tools guide professionals on when concerns should be reported to the National Anti-Violence and Sexual Harassment Helpline for further assessment.