Agenda item

14.1     The Chair of the Committee and the Chair of the Safeguarding Adults Board (SAB) paid tribute to the work of Angie Turner, former Head of Safeguarding, who had sadly passed away recently.

14.2     The Chair of the SAB introduced the Safeguarding Annual Report, highlighting the close work between agencies and an innovative pan-Sussex review of agencies’ capacity to undertake safeguarding which had been undertaken. He drew the committee’s attention to three key themes from the report:

i)             The completion of the first statutory Safeguarding Adults Review (SAR), which are required in cases where an adult has died within the local authority area, had care and support needs and where there is an indication that neglect or abuse played a role. The SAR report will be published in late October or early November and will include 23 recommendations covering seven areas.

ii)            The increase in the proportion of safeguarding enquiries related to domestic abuse (from 2% to 9%). The increase may be  a positive trend related  to work carried out through a multi-agency review and other awareness raising activity about the safeguarding aspects of domestic abuse. The audit undertaken identified many strengths and also areas for improvement. There has been significant work with primary care over the last year and there is now a named GP for safeguarding and piloting of a co-location worker from the domestic abuse Portal in Health and Social Care Connect.

iii)           The partnership protocol developed between the SAB, Local Safeguarding Children Board, Safer Communities Board and Health and Wellbeing Board in recognition that a number of priorities cut across these Boards. Its purpose is to clarify responsibility and accountability for various areas of work and it will be evaluated in a few months time, after 1 year in place.

14.3     The following additional points were made by the Director of Adult Social Care and Health in relation to the additional information on home care which had been requested by the committee:

·         There are home care representatives on the SAB and safeguarding awareness and training work does cover this sector. The SAB has recognised the particular vulnerability in relation to home care, which doesn’t have the same level of oversight in the home as other paid services.

·         There are three layers of assurance in relation to home care: 1) CQC regulates and rates the sector, including setting clear expectations in areas such as training and safeguarding 2) ESCC undertakes direct work with providers to support improvements in quality 3) the core safeguarding process, including awareness raising across all stakeholders and service users. Awareness raising ensures that people know how and when to raise concerns, and this is built into care planning and the set-up of care packages.

·         Safeguarding activity is monitored, with oversight of the data by the SAB. There will increasingly be comparative data available in relation to home care.

14.4     The Director also advised the committee of plans to undertake an Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) peer review of safeguarding in early 2018 and to revisit this work as accountable care develops in East Sussex.

14.5     The following additional points were made in response to the committee’s questions:

·         There are pan-Sussex protocols in place for agencies to refer cases which may potentially require a SAR to the relevant SAB. The case subject to the recent SAR was referred by the Police. The SAB Chair, in consultation with a multi-agency panel, decides whether a referral meets the criteria for a SAR and then commissions external support to do the review. If the SAR threshold is not met other options can be pursued such as a multi-agency review. Learning from non-statutory reviews is also reported to the Board with an action plan which is then monitored.

·         SARs are funded by the Board which is in turn funded by contributions from partners. External costs mainly relate to the independent reviewer, which is a necessary element of the process, but other work is done in house by local agencies.

·         Contributions to the SAB budget have been sought from other agencies and this will continue, particularly if the budget comes under pressure. However, ESCC will always underwrite the costs of the Board given its critical function.

·         The Care Act requires safeguarding concerns to be reported to the local authority which holds the record of all reported concerns. However, it is more difficult to know how comprehensively reports reflect actual safeguarding issues and whether people understand when to refer. There are now better arrangements for determining when quality issues become safeguarding issues and a number of referrals have been received through this route.

·         It is important to look at how we audit and compare our performance to other local authorities, particularly to identify if we are an outlier. A joint Quality Assurance Officer has been appointed with Brighton and Hove to help with this work.

·         The Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) is an employee of the local authority and they have good relationships with Children’s Services.

·         There is crossover with areas such as community safety. Partnerships like SAB and the Safer Communities Board enable collective agreement about best use of resources and common priorities.

·         There has not been a significant change in the proportion of safeguarding concerns related to home care over time. There will always be challenges in this area, for example the use of direct payments leads to a wider range of providers due to client choice.

·         Home care providers are receptive to training and it is part of their core requirements. ESCC continues to offer additional free training and views this as a priority. There are challenges related to the workforce both  because  it is largely unqualified and there are significant recruitment and retention issues.

·         E-learning is used wherever possible. The broader ESCC training offer covers core statutory training and opportunities to develop practice, tiered from unqualified staff new to the sector through to qualified social workers. It is important to go beyond the staff providing direct care as a key issue is the quality of the registered manager and the leadership provided within a service.

14.6     RESOLVED:

(1)  To request that the SAR report and action plan be circulated to the committee on publication.

(2)  To request a further annual report in September 2018, to include a breakdown of safeguarding concerns by sector and by the agency making the referral.

(3)  To receive a further report on the Adult Social Care training offer.

(4)  To receive a further report on the  (ADASS) peer review in due course when findings are available.