Designated clinical officers

The Designated Clinical Officer Service (DCO) in Lancashire and South Cumbria consist of a team of officers and specialist administrators that support the NHS response to statutory assessments and planning for children and young people with SEND aged 0-25 years.

The DCO service have a key role in working to source relevant health information for education, health and care needs assessments. This helps to support the achievement of this principle:

Children, young people and families should experience well co-ordinated assessment and planning leading to timely, well informed decisions. (SEND Code of Practice 2015 p147).

We seek individual health advices from NHS health professionals involved in children and young people’s care.

At the point of requesting an assessment please ensure you provide the details of the involved NHS professionals. This will support our ability to secure and coordinate relevant health advice to inform the statutory assessment.

The DCO Service:

  • Specialist administrators work closely with Local Authorities and NHS providers to co-ordinate NHS health advice requests when we are notified of a needs assessment.
  • Are a point of contact for parents/carers, partner agencies and professionals to raise queries related to NHS health services and SEND when local solutions to resolve this have been exhausted.
  • Works system wide to highlight themes and gaps in provision to the Integrated Care Board (ICB) and SEND Partnership Board.

Parents, carers and children and young people

The DCO service work closely with parent carers in a range of different ways to include:

  • Responding to their individual enquiries
  • Attending engagement events
  • We aid the coordination and health response for SEND extended appeals and support ICB colleagues to respond to health-related SEND appeals and mediation.

Quality

The DCO service are engaged in a range of improvement pieces of work across Lancashire and South Cumbria. We aim to improve standards and consistency of practice so that children and young people’s education health and care plans are of a high quality.

The DCO service host regular meetings with local NHS senior leaders for SEND in their organisations. This supports joint working between DCO service and local NHS services and raises the profile of children and young people with SEND in health.

The DCO service regularly meet with the regional DCO network and NHS England officers. This helps to share learning and standards of practice at regional and national level.

Learning and development

The DCO service support NHS professionals in a number of ways by offering training to enhance their existing SEND knowledge and skills. We host regular learning events and provide more targeted and bespoke support if requested.

SEND Partnerships

The DCO’s are active members of local authority SEND Boards where we support decision making, checking and challenge to members and partners to aid continuous improvement for children and young people with SEND.

Governance

The DCO service provide quarterly reports to the Integrated Care Board (ICB) that details our key activities. Where established the DCOs also provide reports to Local Authority SEND Partnership Boards.

Contacts

DCO Service

Tel: 01253 959033

Email:

Integrated Care Board (ICB)

Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB) is the responsible body that plans and organises local NHS services.

Visit the ICB website for contact details and more information.

Complaints

If you have a complaint about NHS services please contact the Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) for the NHS Trust the complaint relates to.

The full complaints policy can be found on the Trusts websites or by requesting a copy from PALS.