Abstract
A sibling pair, Martha Smith (aged 6) and Elliott Robinson (aged 3) are placed with an adoptive family, Louisa and Mark Brown. The parents are patients of your practice and come in to have the children registered. The administrator asks for their identification documents and raises a concern that the children have different surnames, which are also different to the parents. Louisa who has brought in their paperwork explains the adoption order has not yet gone through. She requests that as the children will be known as Brown at school immediately and will be Brown when the adoption order is granted, that their calling name on practice systems should be Brown, though she understands that their names on medical records will remain their birth names until after the adoption order is granted. When the family bring Elliott for his preschool booster 4 weeks later the nurse uses a call board to call them in; on which the name ‘Elliott Robinson’ flashes up. The nurse asks Louisa if she is his real mother and says ‘so what’s his back story, why’s he been adopted?’
Louisa and Mark make a complaint to the practice about the security risk of using a call board with the name of a child in care and about the inappropriate questions asked by the practice nurse. They suggest the practice may wish to pursue some adoption-specific staff training and learn about trauma-informed practice.
What issues might be raised by the practice using the child's birth surname on the call board? At what stage in the adoption process do medical records get changed to create a new NHS number and new identity for a patient? What is trauma informed care?
