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1.6.1 Emergency Duty Team

AMENDMENTS

This Chapter was updated in December 2010.


Contacting the EDT

The EDT can be contacted by phone by service users, members of the public, other agencies and Council staff.

There is a Dudley Council call handling service for EDT.  The call handler will require the name of the person phoning and a call back phone number. Those details will be passed to the duty Social Worker.

To access the Contact details of the EDT click on the following link:

Emergency Duty Team (EDT)

The Emergency Duty Team provides an out of hours social care service on behalf of the Directorates of Children's Services (DCS) and the Adults, Community and Housing Services DACHS).

The Duty Social Work Service (Out of Hours) provided by the Emergency Duty team (EDT) is as follows:

  1. DCS & DACHS duty social worker referral taking & assessment services are undertaken by the Emergency Duty Team (EDT) when offices are closed.
  2. It is usually staffed by one social worker to provide borough wide cover.
  3. The EDT service operates from 5pm to 9am weekdays, & 24 hours during weekends & public holidays.
  4. Whenever possible service users and other agencies are expected to contact social work services during office hours when a full service is available.
  5. The EDT provides cover to deal only with urgent work involving children, their families & carers; & adults - older persons, the mentally ill, or those with physical or learning disabilities.
  6. The situation must be one that has developed suddenly and usually unexpectedly to a level where there is such a degree of risk that it cannot be safely left until the resumption of full office hours services.
  7. Persons wishing to speak with the duty social worker are asked to leave their name and a contact telephone number; the duty social worker will return the call as soon as possible.
  8. No planned work (e.g. safe and well checks or other monitoring home visits) is usually undertaken by the EDT on behalf of office hours' services. The EDT service cannot be perceived as an extension of the office hours level of service of the Directorates.
  9. In very exceptional circumstances when it is considered by office hours managers to be critically essential for some planned work to occur with existing service users when full office hours services are unavailable, there is an expectation that the matter will be discussed and subject to negotiation with the Team Manager EDT (or if unavailable Divisional Manager EDT) due to the capacity of the EDT service.
  10. A risk assessment must be made available to the EDT service by office hours services in the context of paragraph 9 above.
  11. EDT social workers have the delegated authority not to accept responsibility for what they assess as inappropriate referrals.
  12. This authority is subject to any line-management instruction from the service's line management.
  13. Daytime services are expected to update their electronic social care records for EDT to access on a need to know basis. There may be additional contact by phone for purposes of clarification. EDT Alerts should be inserted into the SWIFT case records under the heading of 'EDT Alerts'.
  14. The EDT alerts folder will remain on the O drive but will only be used by daytime services in the unusual situation of the case having no attachments (Detailed Case Records). If the EDT Alerts folder is used, the daytime service must email EDT advising an alert is in the folder. Any document placed in the EDT Alerts folder must be saved under the client PIN.
  15. When office hours services wish to pass a matter over to EDT with a view to EDT following up, phone contact with the EDT duty social worker is essential in addition to electronic social care records being made available for reference (see paragraphs 13 and 14 above)
  16. The EDT service will submit any reports of work undertaken by the EDT (including data passed to the service) to daytime social care services within DCS & DACHS in electronic form.
  17. Such reports will normally be emailed to the appropriate office hours service group mail box (and any other supporting documentation faxed) by the start of business on the first  full working day after the EDT period of cover.
  18. When e mailing facilities are not available to the EDT, word-processed reports will be faxed through.

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