Agenda item

14.1     The Director of Adult Social Care and Health introduced the report on behalf of the Independent Chair of the East Sussex SAB, Deborah Stuart-Angus, who would usually present the report but had had to send apologies to this meeting. The Director highlighted that the report covered the work of the partnership board in the 2021/22 year, and the work and focus of the Partnership during this time had continued to be heavily impacted by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The Director’s introduction covered key highlights from the report under the SAB’s five strategic themes; and noted that a number of areas covered in the report, such as the safeguarding issues presented by domestic abuse and modern slavery, linked to the work of the Safer Communities Partnership covered in the previous agenda item, and vice versa. The Director also highlighted the increasing complexity of safeguarding cases that the agencies in the SAB were seeing, with incidents of self-neglect and coercion and control particularly challenging to respond to. The Director concluded by highlighting common areas for learning and assurance arising from Safeguarding Adults Reviews (SAR) that had taken place in 2021/22. The Interim SAB Development Manager was invited to comment and added that the SAB continued to be very active, including in SAR activity, with three SARs underway currently and that area of the SAB’s work increasing.

14.2     The Chair thanked the Director and SAB Development Manager for the report. The Committee asked questions and made comments on the following areas:

·         General Practitioner (GP) safeguarding referrals – a question was asked on whether numbers of safeguarding referrals from GPs had improved, noting that this had been an area of concern for the Committee in previous years. In response, the Director committed to follow up with the figures but understood that safeguarding referrals from Primary Care more broadly, including from roles other than GPs, such as practice nurses, had significantly improved. A lot of work had been done through the SAB and NHS Commissioners to raise awareness of adult safeguarding in health, to bring this in line with the awareness of children’s safeguarding. 

·         Partnership Protocol – a question was asked on how the partnership protocol mentioned in the report was applied in practice. The SAB Development Manager responded that the protocol had been in place since 2016 as the focus of the safeguarding partnerships frequently overlapped. Recently, a piece of work had been undertaken looking at common learning themes from reviews (Domestic Homicide Reviews, Safeguarding Adults Reviews, Drug and Alcohol Related Death Reviews and Local Children Safeguarding Practice Reviews). This had identified a number of areas to focus on and there would now be bi-monthly meetings of review managers, which would include sharing recommendations from reviews underway and ones that had concluded, to ensure action planning was smarter and avoided duplication. The partnerships were also looking at other ways to amalgamate learning to make better use of capacity and resources. Other areas of joint working had included ensuring SARs and Domestic Homicide Reviews had similar action plans to give the clearest overview of common themes in learning possible; and increasing awareness of modern slavery through the safeguarding community network. Work had also taken place with community workers and district and borough councils to develop awareness of modern slavery in the rollout of the Homes for Ukraine, Syrian and Afghan refugee schemes.

·         Learning from complaints – a question was asked on the reasons for no outcome being recorded for three complaints in the SAB Annual Report. The Director explained that one of the complaints was ongoing so would receive an outcome when it concluded, while the other two had reached a conclusion without necessarily being formally upheld or rejected. The Director assured the Committee that all complaints were viewed openly and as an opportunity to learn.

·         East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust (ESHT) safeguarding training – a question was asked on whether the Webinar and flowchart that had been produced to improve ESHT staff knowledge of the process of raising a safeguarding concern had now been delivered. The Director responded that the delivery of this training sat with ESHT and so they would follow up to confirm if the issue had been resolved and update the Committee.

·         Fire Authority Home Safety Visits – Councillor Carolyn Lambert, as Vice Chair of the East Sussex Fire Authority (ESFA), welcomed the report highlighting work by East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service (ESFRS) on Home Safety Visits (HSVs). The ESFA Vice Chair also welcomed any support the County Council could lend to ESFRS in rolling out a new telephone befriending service. In response, the Director agreed that ESFRS made a significant contribution to the SAB and that huge progress had been made with delivering HSVs. The Director would speak to officers at ESFRS to find out more about befriending service and whether ESCC could support its rollout.

·         Preventing vulnerability by encouraging Pension Credit take-up – a question was asked on whether work was taking place to encourage pensioners to take up unclaimed Pension Credit they were entitled to, to reduce risk of vulnerability. The Director responded that that activity would sit outside the responsibilities of the SAB but ASC had recently re-established the East Sussex Financial Inclusion Steering Group (FISG), comprised of ESCC, voluntary and community sector partners, boroughs and districts and the Department for Work and Pensions, to look at ways the group could collectively support residents to face challenges from the rising cost of living. One of the key roles of this Group was to maximise uptake of benefits in the county through making people aware of their eligibility, and if necessary, support them with making their claims. The Director noted that the FISG had been working on pulling together information on cost of living support to go on the ESCC website. The Chair of the Committee asked that when this went live it was also shared with town and parish councils and the Director confirmed it would be shared with town and parish council clerks.

14.3     The Committee RESOLVED to request that the latest figures on GP safeguarding referrals and an update on the rollout of online training on safeguarding referrals for ESHT staff be provided to the Committee.