Books, booklets & multimedia

Carer Held Health Record

by Elaine Greaves, Gill Appolinari and Carol Watson

		BAAF 2008 Price: £8.50 + £1.49 VAT

Looked after children suffer many disadvantages. They often come from backgrounds with a high incidence of health problems and poor uptake of primary health care services. It is important that systems are put into place to ensure that significant medical information is passed on to a child’s main carers and is available to medical practitioners seeing a child on a temporary basis.

BAAF’s new Carer Held Health Record is designed to be kept confidentially by the adults looking after a child and, most importantly, to accompany a child when he or she moves on to another placement or returns home. This will ensure that vital information is not lost, that a continuous health profile is kept for every child and that the health outcomes for all looked after babies, children and young people can improve.

Space is included to record:

• Placement details including moves
• Health history
• Immunisations
• Health assessments
• Visits to GPs, dentists and opticians
• Hospital admissions and outpatient consultations

The Carer Held Health Record also contains all of the standard growth charts for boys and girls including height, weight and head circumference.

The user-friendly file format enables information to be detached or inserted. A handy pocket on the inside cover contains an appointment card.

This booklet is not designed to replace the Child Health Record (Red Book) but to complement it as it is designed specifically for those children who are being looked after by local authorities. Where the Red Book is unavailable, and especially for children over 5 years of age, this booklet is essential in providing a continuous health record.