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We wrote to you on 8 March 2024 about the Multi-Agency Adult Support and Protection File Audit. This is the final update to provide you with the key findings of our Multi-Agency Audit and arrangements for the review of our Adult Protection Committee ASP Improvement Plan for 2025 – 2026.
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Our Multi-Agency ASP Audit Co-ordinating Group (ACG) has now stood down.
Once we agree the theme for next year’s Audit in September 2024, the group will start up again in October 2024. It will oversee the planning for the next annual audit due in March/April 2025.
Once again our thanks to all those who helped make this happen as we can’t do it alone.
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Our approach
The Audit Team unanimously agreed that we have taken the right approach - one which mirrors the multi-disciplinary approach to adult support and protection we want for everyone.
File readers who had initial worries about participation found the training and support they received quickly alleviated these and unanimously agreed they would do it again and would encourage others to get involved.
Our practice
We found
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people do feel safer and have good outcomes, even when they may have been afraid of, or resisted social work intervention due to preconceived ideas about “interference”.
This tells us that we have more to do to promote the supportive nature of our protection work across our communities.
- Our chronology and risk assessment practice is showing signs of improvement
This tells us we are starting to see the impact of improvement plan and training investment.
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Anonymous reporting leaves people feeling upset, angry and afraid, affecting how they respond to social work.
This tells us we need to support those making referrals to make sure they:
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- take ownership where it is safe to do so
- are transparent with individuals
- offer explanation of the process and supportive nature of adult support and protection
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Kindness and compassion across partners with the majority of adults (71%) who attended their Case Conference being effectively supported to participate
This tells us that earlier access to Independent Advocacy and moving from an approach that is trauma aware to being trauma informed would be a way to improve on this statistic.
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Our staff felt that we had good wellbeing resources and it was an “ok not to be ok” culture where managers were viewed as supportive.
Responding to people who experience self-neglect
We found
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Almost half of partners recognised self-neglect, with the majority of these being considered to have an excellent partnership response to self-neglect, collaborative working to stop or mitigate the risk from self-neglect being evident in the majority of cases.
This tells us there are still over half of partners who still need support to recognise what self-neglect may look like and understand what steps can be taken to mitigate the risk of service refusal - a factor which is common factor in self-neglect situations.
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The final self-evaluation report was positively received by both the Adult Protection Committee and the Chief Officers Group.
The APC Improvement Sub Group has agreed to set up a short life working group.
This sub group will make arrangements to review the current Improvement Plan 2023 – 2024 and draft the future plan.
This will be based on the improvement priorities identified in the multi-agency audit and any other relevant priorities identified emerging from our APC Chairs Biennial Report 2022 – 2024, together with any improvement activity identified via our Learning Review activity or local learning events.
Outcomes
It has been agreed that once we have the new revised Improvement Plan, both the Audit report and the new Improvement Plan 2025 - 2026 will be made available via our web pages.
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“It was like invaders and then things settled, we really did need the support"
"I don’t know where we would have been without the support, I don’t drink now and we are so looking forward to our new tenancy and garden when it comes."
"It felt like we both were going over the Niagara Falls to start with and now we are slowly heading for the calm water”
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For further information about how to become a member of the Audit Team or about what we found:
Erik Sutherland
Head of Locality Health and Care
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