Safeguarding Adults for

Managers

ObjectivesBy the end of the session delegates will be able to:

– Describe the multi-agency Safeguarding process and their roles within it.

– Make informed decisions and formulate appropriate action around thresholds..

– Describe how organisational cultures promote or hinder safeguarding practices

– Identify strategies for effective leadership within organisations

– Identify barriers to change and how these can be overcome

– Identify their good practice and produce a plan to develop this further.

Learning Agreement

• Confidentiality, but …

• Respect for each other.

• It’s ok to disagree …. but not to be disagreeable.

• Participants are responsible for their own learning.

• Mobile phones

• Breaks.

Changing practice

• Things you have control over

• Things you can influence

• Things over which you have no control or influence

Safeguarding Adults Policy Timeline• 2000: No Secrets (DH)

• 2005: National Framework of Standards of Good Practice and Outcomes in Adult Protection Work (ADASS)

• 2009: Consultation on the review of No Secrets (DH)

• 2010: Practical approaches to Safeguarding and Personalisation (DH)

Safeguarding Adults Policy Timeline

• 2011: Safeguarding Adults: the role of health

services (DH)

• 2011: Advice notes (ADASS)

• 2011: Statement of Government Policy on Adult

Safeguarding (DH)

• 2012: Safeguarding Standards and Performance

(LGA)

Statement of Government Policy on Adult Safeguarding (Dept. of Health, 2011)

• Empowerment: presumption of person-led decisions and

informed consent

• Protection: support & representation for those in greatest

need

• Prevention: it is better to take action before harm occurs

• Proportionality: proportionate and least intrusive

response, appropriate to the risk presented.

• Partnership: local solutions through services working

with their communities, who have a part to play in

preventing, detecting and reporting neglect and abuse.

• Accountability: accountability and transparency in

delivering safeguarding

Case Study

• What concerns do you have with regard to safeguarding?

• What will you do?

Who is a vulnerable adult?

A Vulnerable Adult is a person:

“Who is or may be in need of community care services by reason of mental or other disability, age or illness; and who is or may be unable to protect him or herself against significant harm or exploitation”.

The ‘No Secrets’ definition of a ‘Vulnerable adult’ is taken from the 1997 consultation paper ‘Who Decides?’ issued by the Lord Chancellor’s department.

What is abuse?

Abuse is a violation of an individual’s human and civil rights by any other person or persons.

Categories of Abuse

�Physical

�Financial / Material

�Sexual

�Psychological

�Discriminatory

�Neglect (including self neglect)

�Institutional

Significant harm

"…ill-treatment (including sexual abuse and forms of ill treatment that are not physical); the impairment of, or an avoidable deterioration in, physical or mental health; and the impairment of physical, emotional, social or behavioural development". [Law Commission 1995]

Human Rights Today

absolute rights can never be

limited or restricted, whatever

the circumstances – even in a

state of war or emergency

limited rights can be limited in

specific and finite circumstances.

These circumstances are set out

in full in the Human Rights Act.

qualified rights can be restricted under

more general circumstances – they can be

balanced against the rights of others or the

interests of the wider community

What are our human rights?

• Article 2: Right to life

• Article 3: Prohibition of torture and degrading

treatment

• Article 4: Prohibition of slavery and forced labour

• Article 5: Right to liberty and security

• Article 6: Right to a fair trial

• Article 7: No punishment without law

• Article 8: Right to respect for private and family

life

• Article 9: Freedom of thought, conscience and

religion

• Article 10: Freedom of expression

• Article 11: Freedom of assembly and association

• Article 12: The right to marry

• Article 14: Prohibition of discrimination

• Article 1 of Protocol 1: Protection of property

• Article 2 of Protocol 1: Right to education

• Article 1 of Protocol 13: Abolition of the death

penalty

Safeguarding Adults Process

ALERT

ACHW Access team

who will pass the alert on to the Triage team

Co-ordinating Manager (ACHW or CFT)

Information gather– checks made with all agencies involved

Strategy meeting / discussion / enquiries, risk assessment, interviews

Case Conference

Safeguarding Plan

Review

Initial concern

Culture is …

‘symbolic communication. Some of its symbols include a

group's skills, knowledge, attitudes, values, and motives.

The meanings of the symbols are learned and deliberately

perpetuated in a society through its institutions’.

‘The way we do things round here’

• One victim was showered while fully clothed and had mouthwash poured into her eyes (Winterbourne View)

• Another, who had tried to jump out of a second floor window, was mocked by staff members (Winterbourne View)

• BK dragged a partly naked patient out of a bathroom by his pyjama collar shouting ‘you are no longer a human being but an animal’ (Stafford Hospital)

• Patient forced to drink dirty water from a vase as nurses ignored him while he lay dying (Stafford Hospital)

• Physical abuse such as rough handling or using unnecessary physical force (Close to Home ECHR)

• Older people not being given adequate support to eat and drink and an unfounded belief that H&S restrictions prevent care workers preparing hot meals (Close to Home ECHR)

Responsibility

Authority Accountability

Levels of Responsibility, Authority and Accountability

• Authority is “Institutionalized and legal power inherent in a

particular job, function, or position that is meant to enable

its holder to successfully carry out his or

her responsibilities.”

• Responsibility is “A duty or obligation to satisfactorily

perform or complete a task (assigned by someone, or

created by one's own promise or circumstances) that one

must fulfil, and which has a consequent penalty for failure.”

• Accountability is “The obligation of an individual or of

organization to account for its activities, accept

responsibility for them, and to disclose the results in

a transparent manner”

Safeguarding Adults

DetectionPrevention

Protection

What is Adult Safeguarding?

“all work which enables an adult ‘who is or who

may be eligible for community care services’ to

retain independence, wellbeing and choice and

to access their human right to live a life that is

free from abuse and neglect.”

Safeguarding Adults

Association of Directors of Social Services 2005

I have a cunning plan …

ObjectivesBy the end of the session delegates will be able to:

– Describe the multi-agency Safeguarding process and their roles within it.

– Make informed decisions and formulate appropriate action around thresholds..

– Describe how organisational cultures promote or hinder safeguarding practices

– Identify strategies for effective leadership within organisations

– Identify barriers to change and how these can be overcome

– Identify their good practice and produce a plan to develop this further.