What is a Warm Handover?

 A Warm Handover is where you have a conversation with a client or patient and identify other support that they would benefit from that your organisation does not provide, but that you know others do. If the customer would like to be referred to another organisation in the Warm Handover Scheme, or you feel it is in their best interests, you  can pass their personal information on to those organisations by completing an online form and selecting which organisations the referral goes to. The organisations will then contact the client to offer support.

The process should be used with vulnerable clients or those that you feel will not contact an organisation if you just signpost them to that organisation.

Who can join the Warm Handover?

If you are an organisation operating in Suffolk that provides care, health, support or wellbeing services to adults and young people you are welcome to join.

To see a list of partner organisations click here.

What does my organisation need to do to join?

  1. Have already supplied the items required to join the Suffolk Information Partnership

  2. Your HealthCheck self-assessment or proof of an acceptable accreditation or exemption

  3. Completed and sign section 12.3 of the Suffolk Information Partnership's Warm Handover Referral Scheme Information Sharing Agreement Warm Handover Referral Scheme Information Sharing Agreement. This covers the obligations on all parties, such as keeping data secure and making initial contact with the client within five working days

  4. Copy of your organisation's Data Protection Act 2018 compliant Data Protection Policy

  5. Copy of your organisation’s Safeguarding Policy

  6. A generic email address that referrals can be sent to within your organisation, e.g. info@..., enquiries@.... This email address should be monitored daily during working hours and should not be that of an individual member of staff

New organisations that wish to join the WHRS won’t be able to do so until all the above requirements have been met with all documents submitted and approved.

Are there any technical requirements?

You will be given a link to the referral form, which sits on Suffolk County Council's transaction platform. Staff use the link to open, complete and submit the form. No special requirements are needed for this.

Once submitted referrals are then sent by encrypted email to the chosen organisation(s). If that organisation is outside the County Council network these emails will need to be unencrypted on receipt using Office 365 Message Encryption (OME). To do this staff will need to follow the instructions that come with the email. If your organisation has problems using OME you may want to investigate setting up a Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol with Suffolk County Council. There is no charge for this.

Is the Warm Handover Scheme data protection compliant?

Yes.  A Data Protection Impact Assessment has been carried out and we have a Privacy Statement. Each organisation has to sign the Warm Handover Referral Scheme Information Sharing Agreement and supply their Data Protection Policy before they can join the scheme to demonstrate that they are compliant with the latest data protection legislation.

Who can I contact to find out more?

For more information, to request a meeting, or a presentation to your management team please email us at suffolkinformationpartnership@suffolk.gov.uk .