Find out how we safeguard adults in Torbay - part of the Local Account Summary.
Everyone has the right to live their lives free from violence, fear and abuse and all adults have the right to be protected from harm or exploitation, but not everyone can protect themselves.
We work with the public, volunteers, and professionals to uphold human rights and ensure everyone is treated with dignity and respect, and that people have choice, control, and compassionate care in their lives.
We actively seek feedback from people who experience safeguarding responses, and we commission independent quality checkers who conduct discovery interviews with people who consent to give feedback. They also review quarterly summary reports.
Some of the feedback we received this year includes:
Similar to the previous cohort, all the people who were contacted felt included, that the process was fully explained and that they had input whilst being heard. The safeguarding referral process was appreciated as it often led to further needs identified and then effectively actioned (July 2023).
Section 42 of the Care Act 2014 requires that local authorities must make enquiries or cause others to do so if it believes an adult with needs for care and support are experiencing or at risk of abuse or neglect.
From April 2023 to March 2024, 1180, safeguarding adult concerns were received which is a 1.8% increase on the previous year. The number of concerns which proceeded to Care Act s.42(2) enquiry increased by 31.4% to 393. The table below provides a comparator during the past three years.
| Month | Concerns raised | Concerns closed | Concerns open at month end | Enquiries raised | Enquiries closed | Enquiries open at month end | Concerns that became enquiries |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 2023 | 77 | 65 | 257 | 27 | 21 | 157 | 35.10% |
| May 2023 | 97 | 109 | 245 | 30 | 25 | 167 | 30.90% |
| June 2023 | 93 | 151 | 187 | 28 | 38 | 157 | 30.10% |
| July 2023 | 85 | 68 | 204 | 21 | 15 | 163 | 24.70% |
| August 2023 | 77 | 72 | 209 | 23 | 12 | 174 | 29.90% |
| September 2023 | 72 | 76 | 205 | 21 | 29 | 166 | 29.20% |
| October 2023 | 124 | 196 | 133 | 42 | 83 | 125 | 33.90% |
| November 2023 | 94 | 73 | 154 | 41 | 35 | 131 | 43.60% |
| December 2023 | 95 | 80 | 169 | 21 | 7 | 145 | 22.10% |
| January 2024 | 129 | 154 | 144 | 46 | 73 | 118 | 35.70% |
| February 2024 | 105 | 123 | 126 | 43 | 43 | 118 | 41.00% |
| March 2024 | 132 | 85 | 173 | 50 | 37 | 131 | 37.90% |
| Totals | 1180 | 1252 | N/A | 393 | 418 | N/A | 33.30% |
We report all safeguarding concerns through our various governance boards to ensure oversight, monitoring of trends and to ensure associated actions are completed to provide safe services.
As outlined in Appendix 2, the number of safeguarding concerns this year have increased by (+1.6%) from 1,161 to 1,180 during 2023/24. Keeping people safe is at the heart of what we do, and during the past three years we have increased our focus on supporting and training people to feel confident in identifying and reporting safeguarding issues. This has also been delivered alongside our work to create a safe, compassionate, and inclusive culture where our people feel safe and supported and do not feel blamed when something does not happen as we would like.
The increase in safeguarding concerns is seen to be indicative of good practice and demonstrates the improvements that we have put in place.
We have invested in an Independent Domestic Violence Advocate (IDVA), who is based at Torbay Hospital, to support our people and patients who have experienced abuse and violence. We are also seeing the benefits of a targeted approach to help identify and address self-neglect. The increase in the number of self-neglect and domestic abuse section 42 enquiries underlines the need to raise awareness of hidden harm, while our quality checker system continues to record people’s feedback of safeguarding responses.
Our work is primarily divided between the adult social care community operational teams which respond to safeguarding concerns, and our market management team which works with care homes and domiciliary care providers to promote high quality care and proactively monitor quality standards.
We also work closely with Devon and Cornwall Police, Devon Partnership NHS Trust, NHS Devon, and the Care Quality Commission both in causing enquiries to be made and maintaining strong local partnership arrangements.
In 2023/24 the most common types of alleged abuse were neglect, physical and organisational. We have seen an increase in enquiries linked to domestic abuse by 52.5% and self-neglect by 31%. This reflects targeted work to actively consider these under s.42 duties as an outcome of safeguarding adult reviews and evidence-based research.
We also completed one large-scale safeguarding enquiry in response to safeguarding adult concerns within a care provider setting. This was in response to a concern reported directly by the care provider who proactively supported the enquiry throughout.
We constantly strive to understand emerging issues for safeguarding adults in Torbay and our joint Board arrangement with Devon County Council helps drive collaborative responses to the safeguarding adult agenda.
We promote a zero tolerance of adult abuse, and that safeguarding adults is everyone’s business. When adult abuse concerns are raised, we work in a multi-disciplinary and multi-agency context to understand risk and ensure responses are person centred, include the right people, and include the right partner agencies. Our main focuses this year is to support TDSAP to develop new strategic priorities. We will also expand our local quality assurance systems to evidence the impact of learning review and strategic priority outcomes in practice.
TDSAP oversees local safeguarding arrangements and has a structure to support its objective to protect adults with care and support needs. The structure includes learning and improvement and performance and quality assurance sub-groups. The partnership also has a specific safeguarding adult core group which is responsible for commissioning and overseeing safeguarding adult learning reviews. The Safeguarding Adult Board’s independent chair oversees our local arrangements:
The TDSAP has a fundamental role in embedding the making safeguarding personal agenda across the partnership and we are doing this in partnership with the people who use our services. It is currently reviewing the community reference sub-group arrangement in response. An options appraisal is underway, and the partnership is regularly updated on progress.
We continue to support the delivery of the TDSAP’s strategic business plan 2021-24, and its four priorities, which are overseen by the board:
We have contributed to the development of safeguarding adult review practice briefings, shared learning across our services, helped and committed to apply new multi-agency risk management meeting protocols in practice.
The TDSAP must arrange a safeguarding adult review (SAR) when an adult in its area dies as a result of abuse or neglect, whether known or suspected, and there is a concern that our partners could have worked more effectively to protect the adult.
The TDSAP boards must also arrange a SAR if an adult in its area has not died, but the Safeguarding Adult Board (SAB) knows or suspects that the adult has experienced serious abuse or neglect. Boards may also arrange for a SAR in any other situations involving an adult in its area with needs for care and support if it deems it appropriate. The focus of the SAR is to identify learning not to apportion blame.
This year the partnership published seven SARs.
The learning and improvement subgroup ensures that recommendations from reviews are completed.
We continue to use advocacy services across the three legal frameworks: mental health/ IMHA, mental capacity/IMCA and Care Act. This is provided by the Devon Advocacy Consortium, and we regularly refer people and have contract monitoring systems in place to monitor uptake of services.
The Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) procedure is designed to protect your rights if the care or treatment you receive in a hospital or care home means you are, or may become, deprived of your liberty, and you lack mental capacity to consent to those arrangements. For example, where due to the serious onset of dementia an individual’s capacity to act safely is significantly affected. In April 2023 the government announced the system to replace DoLS known as Liberty Protection Safeguards would be further delayed ‘beyond the life of this parliament’ meaning the existing DoLS system will remain for the foreseeable future. We proactively work with colleagues across the South West region to ensure our systems and processes remain contemporary and as streamlined as possible.