Our aim in the broadest sense is for the public, volunteers, and professionals to work together 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. 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.
Safeguarding is a term used to mean both specialist services and other activity designed to promote the wellbeing and safeguard the rights of adults with care and support needs where neglect or abuse has or is suspected to have occurred.
Our responses to concerns are driven by Care Act 2014 statutory guidance and the national Making Safeguarding Personal (MSP) agenda. This includes working with people or their representatives to establish their preferred outcomes to concerns and work with people to meet those outcomes. Where adults with care and support needs do not have the mental capacity to make specific decisions, we will ensure there is an appropriate legal advocate to act on the individual’s behalf.
Qualitative feedback on safeguarding responses
We actively seek feedback from people who experience safeguarding responses. We commission independent quality checkers who undertake discovery interviews with those who consent to giving feedback. We then receive summary reports from the quality checkers and feed this information back to frontline practitioners via our Safeguarding Adult Improvement Group. An example of feedback given in 2024 is:
I feel the safeguarding process was detailed and robust in ensuring that relevant policies, procedures, and practice were reviewed and updated to ensure appropriate safeguards were implemented and embedded where required. The evidence indicates that best interests' decisions considered the principles of least restriction in relation to any protective measures that were required’’ (Independent Mental Capacity Act Advocate)
‘All questions were answered positively with all objectives fully met, when asked about safety, the response was ‘’Absolutely’’. (Quality Checker summary of discovery interview)
She felt that all outcomes were fully achieved, she felt listened to and ‘’much safer’’. (Quality Checker summary of discovery interview)
Safeguarding adult enquiries summary
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.
| Year | Concerns | S.42(2) Enquiries |
|---|---|---|
| 22/23 | 1,159 | 299 |
| 23/24 | 1,180 | 393 |
| 24/25 | 1,034 | 347 |
*Image shows - Bar chart titled 'Safeguarding Concerns and Enquiries' showing data for the years 2022/23, 2023/24, and 2024/25. Each year includes two bars: one for 'Concerns' and one for 'Section 42(2) Enquiries'. In 2022/23, there were 1159 concerns and 299 enquiries; in 2023/24, 1180 concerns and 320 enquiries; and in 2024/25, 1034 concerns and 341 enquiries.
From April 2024 to March 2025 there were 1034 safeguarding adult concerns were received which is a 12.4% decrease on the previous year. The number of concerns which proceeded to Care Act s.42(2) enquiry decreased by 11.7% to 347. The conversion rate from concerns to s.42 enquiries increased by 0.3% to 33.6%. The table below provides a comparator during the past three years.
Our work in this area primarily divides between the adult social care community operational teams who 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.
Last year, the most common types of alleged abuse were neglect, self-neglect, financial and physical.
During 2024/25 we completed one large-scale safeguarding enquiry in response to system-wide safeguarding adult concerns.
Torbay and Devon Safeguarding Adult Partnership (TDSAP)
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 responsible for commissioning and overseeing Safeguarding Adult Learning Reviews. The partnership has an independent chair who oversees local arrangements.
The TDSAP Strategic Business Plan for 2025 – 2028 sets three priorities:
- Seek assurance from partners in relation to practice improvements in key risk areas.
- Seek assurance from partners that learning from Safeguarding Adult Reviews (SARs) is embedded into practice.
- Improve awareness, engagement and inclusion.
More information on the partnership can be found at Torbay and Devon Safeguarding Adults Partnership
We continue to support the partnership to meet its strategic objectives.
Learning from safeguarding adult reviews
The TDSAP must arrange a Safeguarding Adults 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 partner agencies could have worked more effectively to protect the adult. 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 SARs is to identify learning not to apportion blame.
In this reporting period there have been three SAR referrals to TDSAP connected to our local area. Two referrals related to people in circumstances of self-neglect have been identified as meeting section 44 Care Act safeguarding adult review criteria by the TDSAP. which is a system wide referral. The Partnership published seven SARs which are available on the TDSAP website here. The learning and improvement subgroup ensures that recommendations from learning reviews are completed and is supported by a number of organisations, including ourselves.
Advocacy for people unable to make decisions for themselves.
We continue to use advocacy services across the three legal frameworks: mental health/IMHA, mental capacity/IMCA and Care Act.
This is via a contract with the Devon Advocacy consortium. We regularly refer people and have contract monitoring systems in place to monitor uptake of services.
Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards
The Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) procedure is designed to protect people’s rights if the care or treatment they receive in a hospital or care home means they are, or may become, deprived of their liberty, and they lack mental capacity to consent to those arrangements. For example, where due to the serious onset of dementia someone’s capacity to act safely is significantly affected.
We proactively work with colleagues across the South West to ensure our systems and processes remain contemporary and as streamlined as possible.
Safeguarding adults: a summary
We constantly strive to understand emerging issues for safeguarding adults in Torbay and our joint board arrangement with Devon County Council assists in driving collaborative responses to the safeguarding adult agenda.
We promote a zero tolerance of adult abuse, and that safeguarding adult 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 next year is to support TDSAP in meeting its strategic priorities as well as ensuring qualitative feedback is sought and listened to from those who experience a safeguarding adult response.
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