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First published in 2019 by Critical Publishing Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
Copyright 2019 Barbara Starns
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-913063-25-2
This book is also available in the following e-book formats:
MOBI ISBN: 978-1-913063-26-9
EPUB ISBN: 978-1-913063-27-6
Adobe e-book ISBN: 978-1-913063-28-3
The right of Barbara Starns to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.
Cover design by Out of House
Text design by Greensplash Limited
Project Management by Newgen Publishing UK
Printed and bound in Great Britain by 4edge, Essex
Critical Publishing
3 Connaught Road
St Albans
AL3 5RX
www.criticalpublishing.com
Meet the author
Barbara Starns
Barbara has been a social worker for 27 years with 22 years as a social work manager working predominantly in the field of safeguarding. She has managed services that assure the quality of the provision of adult social care, as well as becoming a Safeguarding Adults Board Manager. Barbara has published previous work relating to safeguarding with children and families and more recently has published an article on Moving to a Systems Approach to Safeguard Adults in Residential Care. Practice in Action in Practice, the British social work journal.
Barbara currently works as an independent consultant and trainer in adult social care, as well as carrying out doctoral research into digital engagement and inclusion.
Preface
Research literature tells us that a multi-agency approach to safeguarding yields better outcomes for the adults we seek to support to be free from abuse and neglect (Norrie et al, ). Yet it has been an elusive model that has encountered challenges through lack of clarity about different professional roles, poor communication and under-resourced partnership development. The Care Act 2014 introduced legislative cohesion for safeguarding, but without a process for professionals to follow. While there is a clear remit for the local authority to carry out safeguarding enquiries, these enquiries can take many different forms and include other professionals or organisations depending on the presenting risk.
The aim of this book is to translate into practice the main elements of safeguarding under the Care Act 2014, in a framework that can be accessed by all professionals, volunteers and students. While there is an absence of uniform safeguarding process in the Care Act 2014, there is a framework of reference that indicates how safeguarding support should be carried out.
The chapters of this book are structured to reflect this framework, providing historical context to help the reader understand how safeguarding has emerged under the Care Act 2014. The book provides guidance about what constitutes safeguarding and how it is applied, enabling any professional to understand their own role in supporting adults to be free from abuse and neglect. Subjects such as mental capacity, advocacy and risk are considered in order to promote understanding of the application of these features in the safeguarding arena. Chapters on safeguarding partners and learning from practice highlight the importance of professionals understanding each others roles and working together to safeguard adults.
The book draws this information together in one place to develop consistent knowledge and understanding of safeguarding that promotes a shared adult safeguarding literacy. This enables professionals to have greater clarity about their own roles in safeguarding, improve communication and foster closer safeguarding partnerships.
References
Norrie, C, Cartwright, C, Rayat, P, Grey, M and Manthorpe, J (2015) Developing an Adult Safeguarding Outcome Measure in England. Journal of Adult Protection, 17: 27586.
Chapter 1 | An introduction to safeguarding under the Care Act 2014
This chapter provides an historical perspective of adult social care legislation and how the need for a safeguarding response has been recognised as an important feature of support to adults with care and support needs. For those practitioners who are unfamiliar with the safeguarding subject, this is an introduction to new changes and duties for all under the Care Act 2014.
Objectives
To develop knowledge and understanding of:
the historical background of safeguarding;
the legal context of the Care Act 2014;
safeguarding principles;
safeguarding duties;
categories of harm;
safeguarding and the role of the carer;
a UK approach.
Historical background
When the Care Act was introduced in England in 2014, it was largely welcomed as a legal document that consolidated what had been up until that point a disparate picture of policies and legal statutes.
Recognition of the need to protect adults from abuse had first emerged several decades prior to the Care Act. Brown et al (with mental health difficulties also started to highlight abusive treatment practices in both the community and hospital settings. Information pointed at times towards a problem of abusive organisational culture in care institutions, leading to recognition of organisational abuse as a source of harm to adults with care needs.
No Secrets
that had recently come into being in 1998.
The policy came with good intentions, and the expectation of a positive step forward in forming a structured partnership approach to the protection of adults. However, the voluntary nature of the arrangements proved insufficient to support success. Ultimately, the need for a legal solution that compelled agencies to work together, with a lead organisation such as the local authority taking responsibility for enquiries, was proved by the discovery of serious organisational abuse at institutions such as Winterbourne View and the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust.
Examples of failure to protect adults under the No Secrets policy
Winterbourne View
Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust
Steven Hoskin
).
These significant case examples contributed to an increasingly worrying picture of abuse of vulnerable adults that demonstrated the safeguarding inadequacy of the voluntary No Secrets policy. The government responded with the introduction of the Care Act 2014, taking steps to provide a safeguarding framework that instigated a legal duty to protect adults to be free from abuse and neglect.
