Safeguarding Adults Procedures

7 principle also applies to family carers and where tension exists this will have to be discussed and reconciled, if possible. Promoting wellbeing should always be considered when responding to safeguarding concerns. Safeguarding means protecting an adult’s right to live in safety, free from abuse and neglect and the purpose of this document is to guide individuals and organisations to identify and respond appropriately when adults may be at risk of harm, abuse or self-neglect. Safeguarding services will promote wellbeing not only in these circumstances but through offering advice and guidance to organisations whose practices could lead to harm, and therefore prevent it. It follows that safeguarding is not simply concerned with responding to what has gone wrong but trying to predict risk. The local agencies that are members of the Safeguarding Adults Board (SAB) recognise this. They are keen that staff working within safeguarding and others concerned about specific adults can bring agencies together through the formal Multi-Agency Risk Management (MARM) process which is endorsed by the SAB and is available on the SAB websites. More generally the Statutory Guidance (2020) issued under the Care Act (2014) requires a SAB to develop preventative measures to reduce the incidence of harm across their area and there is a strategy within which agencies are encouraged to take steps that will help prevent harm arising. A Glossary of all the Terms used in these Procedures can be found at Appendix 1 Criteria These Procedures apply where the Local Authorities respond to safeguarding concerns and/ or make enquiries or require others to do so on their behalf if they reasonably suspect an adult meets the following criteria: • Has needs for care and support (whether or not the Local Authority is meeting any of these needs) and; • Is experiencing, or at risk of, abuse or neglect; and • As a result of those care and support needs is unable to protect themselves from either the risk of, or the experience of abuse or neglect. The LGA and ADASS report Understanding what constitutes a safeguarding concern and how to support effective outcomes (local.gov.uk) (September 2020) outlines how organisations should fulfil their responsibilities under Section 42 (1) if they respond to points one and two above and that whilst a judgement will need to be made about the third point this may well be an outcome of the local authority’s enquiries about the information/ allegation. In other words, it will not necessarily be possible to determine this factor at the time the concern is reported. These Procedures define harm as:  A single act or repeated acts  An act of neglect or a failure to act  Multiple acts, for example, an adult at risk may be neglected and also being financially harmed  Self-neglect (see also Appendix 2) This can mean:  Ill-treatment (including sexual harm and forms of ill-treatment which are not physical).  The impact of not providing care, providing inappropriate care or other actions which are detrimental to health, wellbeing, maintaining independence and choice  The impairment of, or an avoidable deterioration in physical or mental health and/or  The impairment of physical, intellectual, emotional, social or behavioural development. Definitions