Agenda item

Report of the Corporate Director, Adults and Housing.

The Committee received a report of the Corporate Director of Adults and Housing which provided Members with a summary of the Local Safeguarding Adults Board (LSAB) Annual Report for 2009/10. The annual report summarised safeguarding activity which had been taken during 2009/10 and set out the progress that had been made against agreed priorities. 

During the course of a presentation, an officer highlighted the following key points:

·                    significant progress had been made against national standards.  In particular, the Council’s training programme had been expanded, quality assurance processes had been strengthened, ratings for local care providers had improved and satisfaction amongst service users had increased;

·                    success had been achieved through good leadership and the development of new strategies.  The Local Safeguarding Adults Board maintained a strategic overview of the service;

·                    the Safeguarding Adults Team had increased in size with the appointment of a new manager, two new Safeguarding Practice advisers and an assistant;

·                    referral numbers had increased in 2008/9 and this had continued into 2009/10.  Referrals were also coming from a wider range of agencies than in previous years;

·                    the Council operated a robust Quality Assurance process.  This included contract monitoring, internal and external audit programmes, serious case reviews and ongoing supervision and support of Care Managers and Social Workers;

·                    in order to raise awareness of adult safeguarding and the Council’s “zero tolerance” approach, regular articles had been featured in Harrow People magazine.  Work was also underway to raise awareness amongst hard to reach social groups;

·                    the Council was working closely with all its partners to ensure good joint working practices;

·                    the Council had acknowledged that good training was essential to ensure the wellbeing of vulnerable adults and a free training programme had been made available to independent and voluntary sector providers.  Specialist training for more experienced staff had also been made available;

·                    full safeguarding services were available to self-funders and those in receipt of Direct Payments and Personal Budgets;

·                    the Council would be working increasingly closely with self-funders and clients with personal budgets.  There was also a need to refine some of the IT systems that supported the Council’s safeguarding activities.

In response to questions from Members of the Committee, officers clarified the following points:

·                    it was difficult to predict the impact of NHS cuts on the number of referrals.  However, the work of the safeguarding team was funded almost entirely by the Council and, as such, cuts in the NHS were not expected to have any direct financial impact;

·                    the Council had not had any serious case reviews during 2009/10;

·                    whilst adult and child safeguarding shared similar principles, the underlying legislation varied.  The Council was not required to publish the findings of serious case reviews relating to adult safeguarding, although the Council considered it good practice to do so;

·                    comparing Harrow’s adult safeguarding data with that of other local authorities had not been possible in the past due to lack of a national data set.  However 2010/2011 would be the first year of the new national data set which would enable comparisons to be made.  In addition, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) regularly undertook inspections of adult social care services and Harrow’s LSAB had benchmarked local performance against the best of the inspections;

·                    if concerned with the performance or number of referrals originating from a care home, the adult safeguarding team would undertake unannounced inspections to ascertain whether a problem existed;

·                    the Council’s contract team monitored all care contracts whilst CQC undertook regular inspections of care homes.  It was  acknowledged that service users were not always able to report concerns themselves;

·                    when considering the data contained in the annual report, it was important to realise that not every referral represented a case of abuse, although all referrals were treated seriously.  In many instances, the adult safeguarding team would investigate a concern and discover that no further action was required;

·                    the Council was very close to achieving full compliance with the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services Standards for Safeguarding Adults, with only one area requiring additional work;

·                    the adult safeguarding team was trained to identify signs of ‘carer burnout’.  However, whilst the wellbeing of carers was very important, research had indicated that carer stress alone was not likely to lead to abuse;

·                    due to the way in which data was currently collected, it was not possible to see whether there had been an increase in financial abuse in recent years.  However, new laws would soon require local authorities to capture more information which would allow a better and more in-depth analysis of such concerns.

RESOLVED: That

(1)               the work that has taken place in 2009/10 be noted;

(2)               the action plan for 2010/11 be noted;

(3)               that Members be provided with comparative data from previous years.