Safeguarding Adults Boards: Implications of the Care Act rd September 2014

Transcription

1 Safeguarding Adults Boards: Implications of the Care Act rd September 2014 Pete Morgan Independent Chair, Worcestershire & Hertfordshire Safeguarding Adults Boards & Chair PASAUK

2 Safeguarding Adults under the Care Act The statutory role of Safeguarding Adults Boards (SABs) Who are the SAB? What can and can t SABs do? Who are they accountable to? What powers do they have? Is the Care Act a missed opportunity? The implications for healthcare agencies

3 The Safeguarding Vision To promote and protect individual human rights, independence and well-being and secure assurance that adults at risk stay safe, are effectively safeguarded against abuse, neglect, discrimination, embarrassment or poor treatment, are treated with dignity and respect and enjoy a high quality of life Birmingham SAB 2007

4 Safeguarding Adults Vision m Citizenship Empowerment Protection

5 What is Safeguarding Adults? I m not sure, but.. whatever it is, it has to fulfil the Safeguarding Vision and assist or enable the individual to move along the continuum from Protection towards Citizenship and I would suggest that the term itself may cause confusion as it can conflate quality assurance with protection from abuse and neglect.

6 What is Safeguarding Adults? Whatever it is and whatever we call it: it must be timely It must be proportionate It must be outcome focused Practice not procedure based And remember LJ Munby what is the point of making someone safe if you make them miserable?

7 The position pre-care Act No Secrets (2000) Issued under Local Authority Circular Guidance only Role of Local Authorities Develop multi-agency Vulnerable Adult Protection P&P Multi-agency Committees (VAPCs) No Duty to Cooperate

8 VAPC evolved.. Variable: governance processes membership & chairs accountabilities structures infrastructures policies and procedures budgets data bases

9 What does the Care Act say? Local authority must make or cause to be made whatever enquiries it thinks necessary where an adult in its area: has need for care and support, is experiencing, or is at risk of abuse or neglect and as a result of those needs is unable to protect himself or herself against the abuse or neglect or risk of it to enable it to decide whether any action should be taken and, if so, what and by whom. (Section 41)

10 Enquiry or Investigation? What is the difference? The Act doesn t define what an enquiry is and doesn t refer to a safeguarding investigation

11 What is an Enquiry within the Act? Presumably it is that which enables the local authority to decide: whether any action should be taken in the adult s case and, if so, what and by whom

12 What is an Enquiry within the Act? In other words: It covers the entire process of the implementation of safeguarding adult procedures to the point where the safeguarding plan is in place

13 Types of possible Enquiry (I think they mean investigation!) Criminal Regulatory Health & Safety Service Commissioners Serious Incident Social Care Disciplinary Court of Protection etc

14 Function of the multi-agency safeguarding adults procedures to provide the multi-agency forum to coordinate the above, to manage the response/s to an allegation of adult abuse

15 Enquiry = total process from Alert to Assessment Investigation = gathering information on a single agency basis Assessment = analysing the findings of the different investigations to inform decision-making

16 In addition.. Safeguarding must also include Intervention = implementing and monitoring the decision/s There is a final stage the closure of the safeguarding procedure or process

17 What are the Duties of SABs under the Care Act? The SAB s Objective is to help and protect adults in its area in cases of the kind described in section 41 The SAB must seek its objective by coordinating and ensuring the effectiveness of what each of its members does (Section 42)

18 What are the Duties of SABs under the Care Act? The SAB must commission a Serious Adult Review if there is reasonable cause for concern about how the SAB, members or other persons with relevant functions worked together to safeguard an adult the SAB knows or suspects has died as a result of or experienced serious abuse or neglect (Section 43)

19 What are the Duties of SABs under the Care Act? The SAB must publish: a Strategic Plan annually setting out its strategy for achieving its objectives and what each member is to do (Schedule 2; 3) an Annual Report which details what it has done to achieve its objective and implement its strategy, any SARs commissioned during the year and the findings of any SARs concluded during the year (Schedule 2; 4)

20 Who are the SAB? The LA that established it Any CCG which covers part of the LA area The chief officer/s of police for the LA area Such persons as specified in regulations Plus anybody the LA thinks appropriate* The LA appoints a chair it considers* to have the required skills and experience * After consultation with the other statutory members (Schedule 2; 1)

21 What can and can t SABs do? An SAB may do anything which appears to it to be necessary or desirable for the purpose of achieving its objective (Section 42 (4)) An SAB may regulate its own procedure (Schedule 2; 1 (7)) Require persons to provide information to enable or assist the SAB to exercise its functions (Section 44)

22 Who are they accountable to? The Act doesn t say, but the LA is charged with establishing the SAB, not the DASS The Strategic Plan has to be published (?) (Schedule 2; 3) A copy of the Annual Report must be sent to the chief executive and leader of the LA; any police body in the LA s area; the local Healthwatch and the chair of the Health & Wellbeing Board for the area Note no mention of CCGs (Schedule 2; 4)

23 What powers do they have? A local authority must co-operate with each of its relevant partners, and each relevant partner must co-operate with the authority in the exercise of their respective functions relating to adults with needs for care and support (Section 6 (1) a) They must comply unless it considers that doing so would be incompatible with its own duties or have an adverse effect on the exercise of its functions (Section 7 (1))

24 What resources do SABs have? A statutory member of an SAB may: make payments directly or by contributing to a fund towards the expenditure incurred by or for purposes connected with the SAB and provide staff, goods, services, accommodation or other resources for purposes connected with the SAB (Schedule 2; 2) There is no formula to calculate the above

25 An opportunity missed? Membership: Service users Carers Providers health and social care Voluntary sector Minority Groups (including BME)

26 An opportunity missed? Independent Chairs: Not required nor recommended How can a member agency hold itself to account for the effectiveness of its actions? (Think Police; think MPs; think the Press; think Bankers.)

27 An opportunity missed? Resource base: Requires distinction between work of the SAB and the safeguarding activity of individual agencies No base level Section 7 provides a get-out-of-jail card

28 An opportunity missed? Links to other partnerships: Remember the continuum Safeguarding adults overlaps with safeguarding children It overlaps with Community Safety It overlaps with Health & Wellbeing

29 Will Regulations help? They could but Specifically not with regard to membership The DoH has continually stressed its wish to retain what currently works well locally The emphasis is therefore on Practice Guidance which is focused on wicked issues

30 Role of Safeguarding Adult Boards Coordination of single agency responses to the Safeguarding Vision Public/Professional/Political awareness raising Integration of safeguarding adults into mainstream activity Building links to other community partnerships HOLDING AGENCIES & PARTNERSHIPS TO ACCOUNT

31 Role of the Safeguarding Board Policy & Procedure ratification Communication Strategy Staff Development Strategy Commissioning Strategy Service Development Strategy Quality Assurance Strategy Dissemination of Best Practice Horizon-watching Informing the National Agenda

32 SABs will need: Conclusions to establish their own structures to clarify the difference between members and partners strategic v operational? to know what sanctions they can impose/seek to have imposed Independent Chairs and Independent Chairs need a peer support system to develop protocols with other LCPs to recognise issues of non co-terminosity

33 Safeguarding is about empowerment How do you achieve empowerment? By empowering practitioners to empower service users. by enabling them to exercise their professional judgement

34 But remember.. Where does most abuse occur? Who are the most frequent abusers? What do most victims want?

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