Agenda item

Adult Safeguarding Commissioning Strategy

(To receive a report by Justin Hackney, Adult Assistant Director Specialist Adult Services, which provides the Committee with details of the current Adult Safeguarding Commissioning Strategy.  The report also provides information on the key strategic aims recently identified in the Lincolnshire Safeguarding Adults Board (LSAB) Strategy which will be considered when the Council refreshes the Adult Safeguarding Commissioning Strategy in 2019)

Minutes:

Consideration was given to a report which provided the Committee with details of the current Adult Safeguarding Commissioning Strategy.  The report also provided information on the key strategic aims recently identified in the Lincolnshire Safeguarding Adults Board (LSAB) Strategy which would be considered when the Council refreshed the Adult Safeguarding Commissioning Strategy in 2019.

 

Members were provided with the opportunity to ask questions to the officers present in relation to the information contained within the report and some of the points raised during discussion included the following:

·         Safeguarding ambassadors were being developed.

·         Work was being carried out around prevention and early intervention to try and prevent low level concerns coming in as higher level concerns.

·         Making Safeguarding Personal – it was highlighted that this was more about the outcomes that people wanted to achieve rather than the processes.  However, it was noted that adults did have the right to make unwise decisions.

·         It was queried what would happen if a person did not want support.  It was acknowledged that this was a difficulty which could be faced, and there was a need to ensure that all agencies had done everything they possibly could.

·         It was noted that for children, where it was not a protection issue, a 'Team around the Child' could be put in place, but there was nothing similar in terms of adult care.  It was hoped that something like this could be developed.  There was often a lot of low level activity that was not necessarily being co-ordinated.

·         It was commented that in rural areas, people tended 'to keep an eye on' their neighbours.

·         In terms of those elderly people who did not want support, if they were in private housing health and social care colleagues did not have the right to enter the property to determine whether the person needed help.

·         A lot of work was being undertaken with district councils, as a lot of frontline staff did not always know where to go for information, and it was planned to create a web portal.

·         It was queried whether those people who visited people daily, such as the post man for example, would know to raise concerns if they saw a person's post piling up.  There was a need to develop an early intervention and prevention network.

·         In terms of alleged abuse referrals, it was queried whether there was a link between inconclusive and whether the perpetrator was known to the individual, but it was concluded that this was not generally the case, and those reports which were listed as inconclusive tended to be where there was no evidence or the person withdrew their complaint.

·         If a referral reached the threshold for a Section 42 enquiry, it was important to first establish the facts, and in 60% of cases no further action was required.

·         It was noted that the area of higher risk was those people in their homes and care was not being delivered.  If there was no lead professional in a person's life, they were more vulnerable to fraud or neglect and there may be unreported crimes.

·         It was queried what happened when a person was deemed to have the capacity to make decisions, but they were not making decisions of their own volition.  Members were advised that the person conducting the enquiry under Section 42 would have conversations with the person on their own.

 

RESOLVED

 

            That the content of the current Adult Safeguarding Commissioning Strategy be noted, and the feedback on the importance of the following items be passed to the Council's Executive:

·         Making Safeguarding Personal

·         Improve new ways of working

·         Continue the evaluation of safeguarding

·         How can early intervention and prevention be included within safeguarding practices

·         There had been significant improvements in the last few years.

 

Supporting documents:

 

 
 
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