Agenda item

To receive an overview of the work carried out under the multi-agency arrangements for Safeguarding Adults in 2020/21.  (Report from Karen Wright, Senior Manager Safeguarding Adults.)

Members received an overview of the work carried out under the multi-agency arrangements for Safeguarding Adults in 2020/21 and an overview of the work by the Northumberland Strategic Safeguarding Partnership 2020-21.  Reports presented by Paula Mead, Independent Chair of the Safeguarding Adults Board and NSSP Independent Chair.

Safeguarding Adults

The North Tyneside and Northumberland Safeguarding Adults Board (SAB) had been forced to adapt very quickly during the Covid pandemic and change its way of working.  A range of measures and assurance frameworks had been introduced to promote multiagency working arrangements and monitor and mitigate areas of risk and concern.  During 2020/21 Northumberland experienced a 40% increase in safeguarding concerns and 14% rise in safeguarding enquiries.  The location of the main area of increase was in peoples own homes and linked to lockdown restrictions.  Locally, the trend had be in episodes of domestic abuse, physical abuse and self neglect.  There had also been an increase in safeguarding concerns relating to isolation, mental health and wellbeing.  Most referrals had been made by the Police and this was a similar picture nationally.

The Multi-agency Safeguarding Hubs (MASHs) had operated successfully and was unique in that it was an integrated adult and children’s MASH.  It had been a very positive arrangement, and this had been noted nationally.  It had enabled very difficult transitional issues of vulnerable children moving into adult services to be tackled.  There had been no Safeguarding Adult Reviews undertaken in Northumberland.  However, there had been a joint learning review with the Children’s Service within Northumberland.

Key highlights of the Board’s work had been a focus on themes such as Transitional Safeguarding, Vulnerable Dependent Drinkers Project, Channel arrangements and updates, criminal exploitation and the local experience of Operation Momentum.  Covid had been the overarching priority and had impacted on all of the Board’s work. 

There had been an independent review in which the joint North Tyneside and Northumberland Board had been valued and was working quite well.  All of the partners felt, and was probably exacerbated by covid, that there needed to be more focus on Place.  From April 2022, it had been agreed to separate the two Boards.  Northumberland was very keen to join up and integrate the Adults’ and Children’s Boards much more robustly.  This had not been possible whilst working with North Tyneside.

Safeguarding Children Board

Paula Mead reported that local Safeguarding Boards had been disbanded a few years ago and the new arrangements had strategic partners with equal responsibilities for safeguarding children.  These strategic partners were the Local Authority, Police, Northumberland CCG.  Other partners such as health, schools and voluntary organisations still had a role to play in safeguarding children.  Partnership working in Northumberland was very much a strength and had come into its own over the period of the pandemic.  There was still work to be done to solidify the new arrangements and development work had been done with the partners.  It had been identified that the adults and children’s arrangements should work more closely together.

Very specific matters were required to be dealt with within the children’s report such as evidence of impact, analysis of progress against stated priorities, inclusion of decisions and information around local and national safeguarding reviews, information on how feedback from children had been included and built into planning, and review of restraint at any secure unit.

Priorities focused on prevention, early help, work with fathers and improvement on focus on the child’s experience and criminal and sexual exploitation.  These were now sufficiently embedded to enable other priorities to be considered.  The overarching priority was the impact of covid, children and young people’s mental health, neglect, early help, domestic violence including child to parent abuse and non-accidental injury to under ones.

Paula Mead explained that her role was also as an independent scrutineer and her opinion was that good progress was being made, that the partnership working continued to be effective, the processes and assurance frameworks were working as well as they could do

Members welcomed both reports and raised the following points:-

·            Having the three statutory partners had been a good development, but there also needed to be more involvement from relevant partners going forward.

·            It was important to maintain independence and scrutiny in the process.

·            A lot of the good practice in Northumberland had been picked up nationally.  Partners were always trying to push the boundaries and do the best for vulnerable adults and children.

·            There had been detailed national guidance as to what should be included the children’s report.  The evidence base and data used for the children’s report was more robust and detailed than that for adults.  This was partly due to history and how the two boards had evolved and that good quality data was more easily obtainable for children.  It was more challenging to obtain adult data and comparing this data with that from North Tyneside did not work very well as the data was collected in different ways. 

·            The qualitative impact of the data was also being looked at along with the quality of practice arising from the performance data and the opportunities for us to integrate to the two partnerships and take the learning developed from the children’s work and develop this alongside the adults work.

·            Practitioners had worked quite hard to make safeguarding work personal by listening to and integrating their wishes and experiences into their plans.  It was important to find ways of supporting children and their transition into adulthood more effectively.

·            There were cultural differences in the approaches to adult and children’s safeguarding.  There was education to be done around the assertiveness and use of Mental Health Act especially around people with complex problems and alcohol use.  There was a lot to be learned and combining the two to make them on an equal footing would be very useful.

·            Work with alcohol dependant and resistant people over the last year had been very helpful as it had enabled the training of practitioners

RESOLVED that

(1)     The content of the North Tyneside and Northumberland Safeguarding Adults Annual Report 2020-21 be noted.

(2)     contents of the Northumberland Strategic Partnership (NSSP) Annual Report 2020-21 be noted.