For more than a decade, Safeguarding Adults Boards have played a vital role looking at how different agencies should work together to protect vulnerable adults from abuse and neglect.
As you know, Baroness Casey has made some recommendations on adult safeguarding: they focus on the need to strengthen national accountability for this system and introduce far greater transparency about how it works, to make sure that system is better, future abuse and neglected is prevented. This should mean better experiences for people and their families. I know many of you will want to know how my department is taking forward Baroness Casey’s recommendations on safeguarding from her speech at the Nuffield Trust.
We are bringing local and regional insights into the heart of policymaking
We are already working to improve national learning and action from the local Safeguarding Adults Reviews which are escalated to national level through the introduction of a new Challenge Group, chaired by Sally Warren, the Director General with responsibility for adult social care in the department. The Challenge Group scrutinises the local reviews and identifies what response should be taken nationally.
We know that we need to go further. That is why we are working at pace to set up a National Safeguarding Adults Board, which will meet for the first time this summer. It will focus on greater transparency and accountability, learning lessons and sharing those findings nationally.
The new National Safeguarding Board will be chaired by Sarah McClinton, our Chief Social Worker, and will report directly to me. In other words, it will have a direct line into Whitehall decision making.
Alongside this, we are developing plans for a legislative review which will look to scope out potential changes to the safeguarding regime, including whether the new National Safeguarding Adults Board needs to be established with statutory powers. I have been crystal clear that we must be able to respond to the scale of the challenge that Baroness Casey has set out for us.
Learning from Safeguarding Adults Reviews will inform national policy, national regulation, and system reform
We heard Baroness Casey loud and clear that national scrutiny of serious safeguarding incidents isn’t good enough. We are designing the scope of the new National Safeguarding Adults Board to address this issue, and to create real national accountability for adult safeguarding.
And we are going further
Separate from safeguarding but with strong links, we are also tackling big issues in mental capacity policy. That’s why in October, we announced plans to launch a new consultation on Liberty Protection Safeguards and an updated Mental Capacity Act Code of Practice.
We want to radically overhaul the system for safeguarding people’s rights when they lack mental capacity to make decisions about their care. The current system is complex and intrusive, contributing to poor outcomes and long delays.
We want to reduce waiting times for protection by ripping up red tape, and putting the experience of people and families at the heart of everything we do.
This blog reflects comments due to be made by the Minister of State for Care at the National Conference for Safeguarding Adults Boards.
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