People experience inconsistent safeguarding arrangements, says social care watchdog
4 November 2008
Neglect or abuse can be minimised by high quality care services,
says a study published today by the Commission for Social Care
Inspection (CSCI). The study found that councils which perform well
on safeguarding tend to have not only better arrangements for
assisting people who have experienced abuse, but better systems for
helping to prevent abuse happening in the first place.
Safeguarding adults: A study of the effectiveness of
arrangements to safeguard adults from abuse reports on arrangements
that are in place in England to help prevent the abuse of adults
and to support those who experience abuse. The study also reports
that disabled and older people who experience abuse get a varied
quality of support.
CSCI Chair Dame Denise Platt said:
“Everybody receiving care services has the right to be
safeguarded, and any form of abuse is unacceptable. They should
also have access to a range of options to support them and help
keep them safe.
“Our report finds that not all social care organisations have
made enough progress in developing effective safeguarding
arrangements. But there are some excellent examples of good
practice, and these need to be spread more widely.” Key finding
from the study include:
- Disabled and older people who experience abuse get a varied
quality of support, due to uneven progress by councils and care
services in developing effective safeguarding arrangements.
- More needs to be done to ensure people who direct their own
support are able to benefit from appropriate and individually
tailored safeguards. Everyone using services should be able to
access a range of options for support to keep safe from abuse that
can be tailored to their individual need.
- It is important to prevent abuse happening in the first place
but work on prevention of abuse is also variable within and across
council areas and within care services. For example, councils
should “design safeguarding into services” through service
contracts.
Councils are beginning to provide options to help prevent abuse
for people who direct their own support (under developments such as
Direct Payments or Individual Budgets) but the evidence indicates
that no council yet has a systematic approach in place for
this.
The report identifies that councils rated as good by CSCI are
also those that have more care services in their area with
effective safeguarding arrangements in place, such as home care
agencies and care homes. If a council is performing well at helping
to keep people safe, a greater number of regulated services in
their area are performing well too. The study also found that care
services that receive a good or excellent quality rating from CSCI
are more likely to have effective safeguarding arrangements in
place.
Paul Snell, CSCI’s Chief Inspector, said:
"Our study provides evidence from the wide range of services we
regulate and inspect, across councils, care homes and home care
agencies. Whereas the overall picture across this range is varied,
we have found that the best councils are demonstrating active
leadership on safeguarding and building strong partnerships
locally, for example with police and health services. The study
shows that in the best councils and services there is a commitment
to good safeguarding practice that starts at the top."
He continued:
"Although our study confirms the rising profile of work to
safeguard adults from abuse across the country, there is
significant variation in the degree of priority shown to
safeguarding adults, and more work is required to bring all
services up to the standard of the best."
Notes to editors
- As defined by the Department of Health’s No secrets guidance,
abuse is a violation of an individual’s human and civil rights by
an other person or person and takes many forms, including:
physical, sexual and psychological abuse, financial or material
abuse, neglect and acts of omission; and discriminatory abuse.
- The evidence that supports the study comes from a number of
sources: 23 service inspections, fieldwork, case-tracking, 94
thematic inspections of care services and 250 thematic probes, the
performance of regulated services against the protection NMS; and
self-assessment by all 150 councils.
- CSCI is the inspectorate for adults’ social care in England,
responsible for regulating and inspecting all social care providers
- whether in the public or independent sector, and for assessing
the performance of local councils in delivering their adults’
social services functions.
- The Commission’s primary aim is to improve social care by
putting the needs of people who use care services first.
- The Commission is chaired by Dame Denise Platt DBE and has five
Commissioners. The Chief Inspector is Paul Snell.
- Download the Safeguarding
adults report
Media contacts
- Andy Keast-Marriott 020 7979 2093
- Ray Veasey 020 7979 2094
- James Hedges 020 7979 2089