Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps the Government is taking to implement the Female Genital Mutilation Risk Indication System.

The Department has allocated £4 million for the Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) Prevention Programme, to run from 2014-18. This includes funding for commissions to NHS Digital to produce the first ever FGM quarterly official statistics and a new safeguarding tool, the FGM Risk Indication System (RIS). The Programme has also funded FGM e-learning free of charge for all National Health Service staff, a range of FGM guidance materials, the development of clinical practice, national outreach events, awareness-raising initiatives and the support of partner projects.

The FGM Risk Indication System shares information systematically about potential risk of FGM with healthcare professionals who come into contact with girls for whom a potential FGM risk has been identified. The RIS implementation phase has a target of supporting 50 maternity units across England to add the FGM RIS indicator by March 2018.

Three maternity units are now using the system to share information about girls potentially at risk of FGM. NHS England is coordinating and supporting the remaining units to use the FGM RIS, with more than 25 actively working with to introduce the system. This is in conjunction with safeguarding networks, regional NHS England offices and clinical commissioning groups.

NHS England supports sites to introduce the system using lessons learnt, providing expert guidance and advice on the RIS and information needed to make appropriate preparations and staff training to use it. This includes an assurance model to ensure that changes are sustainable.

In addition, NHS Digital is working with healthcare record system suppliers to allow this system and the information held within it to be shown as part of a secure and integrated system to frontline clinicians - the priority being to make sure that general practitioners and community practitioners can see this information.