Issue 32 | June 2024
Welcome to the June edition of Pass It On News.
A bi-monthly newsletter bringing you the headlines and new policies, procedures and guidance from your West Sussex Safeguarding Adults Board.
In this newsletter
 Brighton & Hove, East Sussex, and West Sussex Safeguarding Adults Boards are pleased to announce the launch of the NEW Sussex Safeguarding Adults Policy and Procedures website.
You can access the website at www.sussexsafeguardingadults.org.
With this new website, we have created a home for the Sussex Safeguarding Adults Policy and Procedures that is easy to navigate, easy to digest, accessible, and promotes a unified approach to safeguarding adults across Brighton & Hove, East Sussex, and West Sussex.
The Policy and Procedures themselves will remain under regular review, and we will communicate amendments to you through briefings and newsletters.
This website replaces the previous Sussex Safeguarding Adults Policy and Procedures website. We therefore ask that you update any internal documents within your organisation, with this new URL address. A redirect on the previous website will remain in place for the foreseeable future.
Access the new website:
Supporting documents:
This year, we would like to recognise excellent safeguarding adults practice across the partnership. To do this, we are launching the West Sussex Safeguarding Adults Board safeguarding adults practice awards.
These awards are designed to empower practitioners to recognise and celebrate exemplary safeguarding adults practice. This could be practice by an individual, or by a team. It could be within your own agency, or another agency that you work with.
There will be six awards, in line with the six key principles that underpin all adult safeguarding work. When you submit your nomination form, you will be asked to confirm which of the awards you are submitting your nomination for.
All nominees will receive an acknowledgement of their nomination, in recognition of their practice. These acknowledgements can also be used as evidence for their continual professional development.
Award winners, as well as nominating professionals, will be notified of their success, and invited to the Safeguarding Adults Board Conference. Awards will be presented to award winners at the Conference.
For more information, and to nominate someone you work with:
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We have recently updated the documents relating to the Multi-Agency Risk Management (MARM) subgroup of the Board.
The MARM is a subgroup which meets monthly to consider further actions for adults where risk remains high despite measures attempted to address or mitigate risk. The criteria for a referral into the MARM are:
- The adult appears to have care and support needs;
- Efforts have been made to reduce risk, and work with others to do this, and there continues to be a significant concern about the well-being and safety of the adult;
- The adult has a service or agency currently involved;
- An agency’s risk assessment has been completed and submitted with the referral.
If you are working with an adult who appears to meet this criteria, please do refer to the following documents to access support from the MARM subgroup.
Key documents:
In September 2023, the Quality and Performance subgroup carried out a multi-agency case file audit on the safeguarding of older people. The audit looked at the cases of ten older adults who had been involved in a safeguarding enquiry, and had had involvement with multiple services.
One of the outcomes of this audit was identifying that suitable risk assessments, including multi-agency meetings or communication to jointly assess risk and agree a safeguarding plan, were not as common or strong as they should be.
To take forward learning about effective risk assessment and embed it within your own organisation practices, please refer to the learning resources that we have previously shared:
Key documents:
Another outcome of the audit was the identification that adults were not always supported with measures to protect them from harm and abuse. For example, there was a lack of clear process to identify and respond to emerging risk, or consideration of mental capacity and best interest, or the use of advocacy services when required.
Please refer to the following learning resources to learn more about what may affect someone's mental capacity; how capacity should be assessed; and what happens after a capacity assessment.
Key documents:
It was noted in the audit that some practitioners stated that they did not receive feedback about safeguarding enquiries which had been raised. A checklist for completed enquiries is included in the Sussex Safeguarding Adults Policies and Procedures, which includes information about feeding back to relevant agencies or organisations involved with the adult. Please refer to this checklist for more information.
Key documents:
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In November 2023 Brighton & Hove, East Sussex, and West Sussex Safeguarding Adults Boards published a suite of new adult safeguarding posters and a leaflet. We are pleased to advise that our colleagues in East Sussex County Council have now created an easy read version of the adult safeguarding leaflet.
Easy read documents are designed to be used by people with a learning disability, or by people who have difficulty with understanding standard written information. Easy read documents use short sentences and pictures to make information easier to access for people with a learning disability.
Please do share this leaflet with your networks. If you would be interested in receiving printed copies of this leaflet, please do contact safeguardingadultsboard@westsussex.gov.uk.
Key documents:
Supporting documents:
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We are delighted to let you know that our website, along with the Sussex Safeguarding Adults Policy and Procedures site, is currently being assessed by Shaw Trust Accessibility Services. This is with a view to ensuring that our websites are compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 A and AA criteria.
We will keep you updated on the progress of this work, but in the meantime, you can view the status of our accessibility accreditation on the link below, or by clicking the Shaw Trust Accessibility logo in the footer of our website.
Key documents:
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