Agenda item

This is the third Annual Report of the Safeguarding Adult Executive Board (SAEB). The multi-agency Board provides leadership of adult safeguarding across the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham; the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea; and the City of Westminster.

Councillor Vaughan welcomed Mike Howard, Independent Chair of the Safeguarding Adults Executive Board (SAEB), and Helen Banham, Strategic Lead, Professional Standards and Safeguarding, Westminster City Council.  The report presented the third annual report of the SAEB, which worked across the three boroughs.  The key statutory agencies involved were: the local authority, police and health professionals including directors of public health, NHS trusts, including The Royal Marsden, Imperial, West London Mental Health Trust, Central and North West London and Central London Community Healthcare. 

The SAEB was responsible for conducting Safeguarding Adult Enquiries (section 42) and reviews (section 44), stipulated under of the Care Act 2014 (CA, 2014) and offered guidance to employers on how to recruit staff safely.  Safeguarding adults was a matter for all agencies and Mike Howard explained that they were fortunate in the high level of involvement and commitment offered by residents operating at the heart of safeguarding.  Focusing on harm, neglect and scams, Trading Standards had a pivotal role in ensuring that residents are made aware frauds targeting vulnerable adults.  A key message was to ensure that the language used was simple and effectively communicated and connected with people.  To illustrate, two consultation events were held, with feedback used to inform and develop the SAEB strategy.   The role of community champions was also essential to ensure local input and were now represented on the SAEB. 

Setting out the methods under which the SAEB conducted itself, Mike Howard explained that the aim was understand why a situation had developed, what were the causal factors that resulted in harm or neglect.  The SAEB had not yet experienced a situation where they have had to invoke section 45 of the CA 2014 because of the co-operative nature of the relationships with the organisations or agencies they worked with.

Councillor Carlebach welcomed the report and enquired about the role of the SAEB in relation to the Children’s Safeguarding Board, with regards to children with Local Offers transitioning to adult support services, commenting that this group was particularly vulnerable and difficult to identify.  Helen Banham confirmed that were there locally agreed protocols for working with local safeguarding committees.   The main area of overlap was with children that were transitioning.  Those under a Local Offer usually go on to have planned care.  Those who do not for some reason move to receiving adult services, may become vulnerable at a later stage and come to the attention of ASC.  It was important to note that there were no eligibility criteria for adult safeguarding. 

Councillor Natalia Perez referred to an earlier comment regarding the simplicity of the language used and enquired what methods were used to ensure that information about adult safeguarding was fully communicated to black and minority ethnic groups or to those whose first language was not English.  Mike Howard responded that the SAEB consultation events were open to all and confirmed that the Board relied on the operational capacities within individual organisations to ensure that the information was communicated in a variety of ways.  He was aware that this was area that required them to work more closely with the community and commended the work of community champions, whom they relied on to communicate key messages.   Helen Banham added that there was also a website and printed information that was easy to read.  Training sessions were also run to train managers and community champions.

Councillor Brown referenced his personal involvement with the work of the Board and commended work undertaken on highlighting incidences of pressure sores in the NHS.  It was explained that the pressure sore protocol work was one area work and that the theme this year was scams.  Part of the criteria selecting areas of work to focus on was to establish which vulnerable groups were identified as being in most need of protection.  They had recently dealt with three reviews of three deaths of individuals who were either homeless or lived in hostels and the SAEB role in responding to these deaths was treated as a priority.  Another area of work was with the fire brigade, who had dealt with several incidences of death linked to cases of extreme hoarding (Earls Court). 

Bryan Naylor commented that the Age UK Consultative Forum had received several presentations informing them about scams and thanked the Board for raising awareness about them.  Highlighting examples of inappropriate sexual behaviour that had been brought to his attention, he enquired about the way in which the SAEB would proceed. Helen Banham explained that it would depend on individual victims as to how they wished to proceed and what their expectations were as to what they would like to see happen next.  Additionally, they would need to establish if there was a public interest issue.

Councillor Vaughan commented that the report was relevant, easy to read and accessible although noted that the term ‘safeguarding’ was not one which was commonly used.  He asked what mechanisms were used to ensure that they were aware of peripheral issues that were emerging and how these could be captured.  Mike Howard responded that at a strategic level, he attended one meeting per annum of the Children’s Safeguarding Board and the Violence Against Women and Girls Group.  There was also a reference to human trafficking in the report.  They were also working on creating stronger links with the borough commanders and strengthening the referral links for adult Multi-Agency Service Hub or “MASH”.  Statistics on the numbers of vulnerable adults without care and support (133,000) were circulated to the Committee for information.  Safeguarding was a personal issue and the SAEB worked with adults aged over 18.  To date, 55 safeguarding reports had been issued. 

ACTION: HASCSIPAC

Councillor Vaughan thanked the presenters for the report and summarised several points including the difficulties of communicating with hard to reach groups, peripheral issues, priorities such as self-harm and neglect. 

RESOLVED

That the report be noted.